The night went terribly awry for Tottenham Hotspur but manager Ange Postecoglou praises his team for how they played against Chelsea.
It was a box office match and a perfect end to matchday 11 of the 2023/24 Premier League season. As far as football entertainment goes, Tottenham Hotspur vs Chelsea on 6 November 2023 had everything from hard tackles to disallowed goals to scraps on the pitch to red cards and a hat trick from the most unlikely player.
It also had some very harsh VAR calls that made the Arsenal incident over the weekend look mild in comparison and the fans will continue to talk about for the longest time.
Postecoglou, who finished the game with nine men on the pitch thanks to red cards shown to Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie, finally lost his unbeaten streak and Spurs dropped down to second as a result.
The Australian coach chose to focus mainly on the positives of the game in his post-match comments.
“It’s a hard game to analyse but in terms of effort, will and determination it was an outstanding effort by the lads,” the former Glasgow Celtic manager said. “I thought we started really well, scored a good goal, then we were inches away from scoring a good second, but it was offside.”
“Then the game got out of control, there was a lot happening that made the game a little bit not within the parameters we want to play. It felt like after that there were a lot of disruptions.”
“I thought they gave everything they could and, unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”
“We’ll let the dust settle, let the boys recover, obviously we’ll have a few absences next week. Micky looks quite significant, but we’ll just have to see what happens. We’ll dust ourselves off and prepare for next week.”
“It’s hard to analyse from a football perspective. You’re left with the result which is disappointing. You don’t like to lose, particularly here at home. I’m super proud of the players’ efforts, will, determination and desire to try to get something out of the game.”
Postecoglou also spoke about how VAR has performed in recent games, claiming that the technology is leading to an erosion of referees’ authority in games.
“There will be a forensic study of every decision out there, I think that is the way the game is going and I don’t like it,” he said. “If you look at all that standing around we did today, maybe people enjoy that sort of thing but I’d rather see us playing football.”
“You have to accept the referee’s decision, that is how I grew up. This constant erosion of the referee’s authority is where the game is going to get – they are not going to have any authority. We are going to be under the control of someone with a TV screen a few miles away.”
“The decision is the decision. In 26 years I have had plenty of bad decisions, I have had plenty fall in my favour. It is what it is.”
