Tottenham Hotspur's manager, Ange Postecoglou, has come to the defense of Premier League referees who have been facing criticism. He also cautioned fans that VAR will never be flawless, following his team's memorable 2-1 victory over Liverpool in North London.
Tottenham remained unbeaten this season, but the match was surrounded by controversy. Liverpool's Curtis Jones received a straight red card in the 26th minute for a robust tackle on Yves Bissouma. Despite being reduced to 10 men, Liverpool appeared to score through Luis Diaz, but the goal was disallowed for offside, a decision that the PGMOL later acknowledged as incorrect. VAR did not intervene to award the goal. Subsequently, Son Heung-min scored for Tottenham, equalized by Cody Gakpo's well-executed goal just before halftime.
In the second half, referee Simon Hooper drew the ire of Liverpool fans by issuing a second yellow card to Diogo Jota for two fouls on Destiny Udogie, with the first foul appearing to be initiated by Udogie himself. Nevertheless, Liverpool, with only nine players, defended remarkably well.
In the final moments of the game, Joel Matip accidentally redirected Pedro Porro's cross into his own net, handing Tottenham a 2-1 victory and leaving Liverpool disappointed.
Despite the PGMOL admitting to a "significant human error" in the case of Diaz's disallowed goal, Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool's manager, dismissed the statement, emphasizing that his team left the capital with zero points.
During his post-match press conference, Postecoglou refrained from discussing specific incidents from the game. Instead, he emphasized that officials, like players and managers, can make mistakes, and technology does not guarantee perfection.
"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," the Australian said.
"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.
"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."
Postecoglou also reassured everyone about concerns regarding the captain, Son, who had been a doubt due to an injury before the game and seemed to be in discomfort as he left the field. He explained that Son's substitution had been part of a pre-arranged plan.
"Look, he wasn't 100% but I had a chat with him yesterday and he was desperate to play. He was going to give what he could and he did. He was never going to play the whole 90, we were always going to give him an hour or so but he led from the front again and he was the one doing the pressing. He got his goal as well so great captain's effort," Postecoglou added.
