‘Deal with it’ - Ange Postecoglou gives honest verdict on VAR decisions in Liverpool loss to Tottenham

Ange Postecoglou reckons that VAR will never been flawless after Liverpool rued the decisions that went against them in their loss to Tottenham Hotspur.

The Reds suffered their first defeat of the 2023-24 season to Spurs in north London yesterday. But Jurgen Klopp’s side felt aggreived that officiating was firmly on the hosts’ side. Curtis Jones was sent-off in the 26th minute for a foul of Yves Bissouma. Referee Simon Hoopes initially branded a yellow card before VAR intervened and recommended that Jones should be given a red.

Despite being a man down, Liverpool put the ball on the back of the net when Luis Diaz fired home. The offside flag was raised against the Colombia international but replays showed he was onside with referees' body PGMO admitting to a “a significant human error that VAR did not overturn the decision.

Son Heung-min gave Tottenham the lead in the 38th minute but the 10-man Reds equalised in stoppage-time through Gakpo. Yet the visitors would then be reduced to nine players when Diogo Jota was given a second yellow card - although his first booking was dubious. While Liverpool defended doggedly, they were left crestfallen when Joel Matip scored a 96th minute own goal.

Postecoglou is still to be defeated in the Premier League since taking charge of Spurs over the summer. He admitted he’s not a fan of technology in football but teams now have to ‘deal wth it’. The Tottenham head coach said: “You might have to dig up some research on me mate. I think I'm on record as saying that I've never really been a fan of it since it came in. Not for any other reason than I think that it complicates areas of the game that I thought were pretty clear in the past, but I can see at the same time why it was inevitable that technology would come in.

“We have to deal with it. The biggest problem I think that we have is that we seem to fail to grasp is that no form of technology is going to make the game errorless. We used to understand that errors were part of the game, including officiating errors. You'd have to cop it and some people would cop it better than others but that was part of the game. The game is littered with historical refereeing decisions that weren't right but we all accepted it that it was part of the game because we're dealing with human beings.

“I think that people are under the misconception that VAR is going to be errorless. I don't think there's any technology, because so much of our game isn't factual. It's down to interpretation and they're still human beings. They're going to make mistakes the same way managers make mistakes, the same way players make mistakes. When you put such a high bar on something it invariably is going to fail, so if people are thinking that VAR is going to be something that at some point that is perfect, that's never going to happen.”

On Jones and Jota’s dismissals, Postecoglou added: “Hard for me to comment on decisions on opposition teams, but first one Biss has got a decent whack on his ankle so didn't look great and I thought the second came from our pressure. I thought we were pretty relentless in the second half and didn't allow them to breath. We obviously had the man extra and there were a fair few fouls so I think it was an accumulation of things, but they are decisions against another team. I haven't commented on decisions against our team this year and there were a couple of times I felt it could have gone either way so I'll leave it for others to decide if right or wrong.”