Ange Postecoglou says ‘we have to accept the referee’s decision’ after home loss

By Carl Markham, PA

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou has called for an end to the questioning of officials’ decisions in order to prevent their authority being undermined.

Spurs had two players sent off in the 4-1 defeat – their first loss of the Premier League season – at home to Chelsea but refused to criticise referee Michael Oliver.

However, after a first half which had 12 minutes added on due to several VAR checks, the Australian felt a number of incidents have led to an overuse of technology.

And then there was none...

Ange Postecoglou suffers his first defeat in the Premier League ❌ pic.twitter.com/Avo5OUyBcX

— Premier League (@premierleague) November 6, 2023

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta called Newcastle’s winning goal against his team after three VAR checks a “disgrace” on Saturday and the club issued a statement calling for the standard of officiating to be “urgently addressed”.

“Decisions are decisions: you either accept it or you don’t,” Postecoglou told Sky Sports.

“Some of it is self-inflicted (but) if we are going to go out and complain about bad decisions every week, what will happen is what happened today: a forensic study of every decision.

“I think that’s the way the game is going. I don’t like it – I could be a lone voice as I’m told that’s the way forward. With VAR intervention it just felt like a lot of standing around.

“At some point we have to accept the referee’s decision. This constant erosion of referees’ authority, this is what the game is going to get: they will not have any authority, it is going to get diminished and we are going to be in the control of someone a few miles away watching a TV screen.”

Spurs had led through Dejan Kulusevski’s sixth-minute deflected goal and had a second from Son Heung-min ruled out for offside by VAR.

But when Cristian Romero was sent off for a challenge on Enzo Fernandez which allowed Cole Palmer to equaliser from the penalty spot the game changed and a reckless second yellow card for Destiny Udogie early in the second half left the hosts with an uphill battle.

They held out until the 75th minute when Nicolas Jackson scored the first goal of his hat-trick, adding two more deep into added time.

“It’s pretty hard to process because it’s almost impossible to analyse the game,” added Postecoglou.

“You’re left disappointed with the result but proud of the efforts of the players and that is the positive we will take out of it.”