Fresh off the back of his rant at VAR in midweek, Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou was again left fuming at the technology’s interventions after a lengthy offside check
Ange Postecoglou turned his ire on VAR once again after Tottenham had to wait five minutes for a goal to be ruled out because of a marginal offside. Two days after suggesting that his enjoyment for football had been dulled by technology being used to aid referees, Postecoglou shrugged when Lucas Bergvall’s strike was eventually wiped off.
It would have been the teenager’s first Premier League goal only for Sergio Romero, who had provided a knockdown header, to have strayed off. Semi-automated technology, already in use for European games, will be introduced in the Premier League next week to speed up decisions.
But Postecoglou, who was “really happy” with his team’s first half performance, is sceptical that it will improve the process greatly. “I’ve got no idea, that’s the assumption,” he said.
“Again, if you told me a few years ago that we would be spending five minutes during a football game standing around I would never have believed you. But everyone loves it, everyone wants it, everyone is delighted by it and it is working so well and we’re getting all the decisions right.
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“They draw those lines, is anyone convinced by those? This is not a slight on anyone as I don’t think it favours us or not favours us but the fact we’re waiting five minutes I really don’t think that’s what technology was brought in for.
“But it’s gone too far down the road for anyone to claw it back. We used to allow the assistants to make those decisions and we all accepted it.”
As for his team’s performance, with a season-defining Europa League tie against Eintracht Frankfurt to come on Thursday, the Australian added: “I was really happy with the first half.
“We were really disciplined, well organised and limited them. Every time we went forward we looked dangerous, really fluent. Second half, not so much. We became too passive without the ball, really sloppy with the ball and the subs didn’t make the impact I wanted.
“Disappointing, something to improve on, but we got the win and everyone came through unscathed and ready for a big night Thursday.”
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