Ange Postecoglou questioned the implementation of VAR after a long delay to Spurs’ game against Southampton to rule out a goal for his side.
Cristian Romero was eventually judged to be offside in the lead-up to a Lucas Bergvall goal which would have given Tottenham a 2-0 lead in a match they went on to win 3-1, but it took VAR Graham Scott almost five minutes to reach his decision.
The Tottenham manager spent some of that time miming the tossing of a coin and playing rock-paper-scissors to emphasise the seemingly random nature of the call, and said he was unconvinced by the lines added to freeze-frames which are used to rule on offsides. “They draw those lines, is anyone convinced by those?” said Postecoglou.
“This is not a sleight on anyone, I don’t think it favours us or doesn’t favour us. But the fact we’re waiting for five minutes, I don’t think that’s what technology was brought in for. If you had told me years ago we’d be spending five minutes during a football game just standing around I wouldn’t have believed you.”
Then, with some sarcasm, “But everyone loves it, everyone’s delighted by it, it’s working so well and we’re getting all the decisions so right so who am I to complain about it?”
Semi-automated offsides will be used from next week in the top flight, although Postecoglou seems unconvinced that they will speed up the decision-making process. “I’ve got no idea, that’s the assumption.”
He also feels he is in a minority within football with his views on VAR. “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 them. Offside was never meant to be microscopically adjudged.
“If they ever get to a place where it’s done instantaneously then I’ll accept it because offside is offside but I just can’t believe that this is what we brought it in for, to stand around for five minutes for something which, is in my view, inconclusive.
“I didn’t think there was a crying need for the game of football to be disrupted like this. But it has been and as I keep saying the overwhelming majority of voices are in favour of it, so that means it’s very hard to stem that tide.”
Postecoglou was unimpressed by his team’s second-half display: “I thought we became way too passive without the ball, we allowed Southampton to get a bit of a rhythm, We were really sloppy with the ball and the substitutions didn’t really have the impact I wanted them to.”
Southampton manager Ivan Juric blamed recruitment, inexperience and a lack of physicality for his team’s struggles.
“What I noticed the most in the three or four ...
