Ange Postecoglou ‘Agrees’ with Arne Slot and Makes ‘Dominate’ Liverpool Admission After Tottenham Win
Tottenham Hotspur secured a 1-0 victory over Liverpool in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final.
Ange Postecoglou admitted he could understand why Liverpool manager Arne Slot might feel “disappointed” about Tottenham’s decisive goal, which handed the London side an advantage in the semi-final tie.
The win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was not without controversy. Lucas Bergvall scored the only goal of the match with just four minutes left on the clock.
However, the goal came moments after Bergvall had fouled Kostas Tsimikas, a challenge that many believed warranted a second yellow card for the Spurs midfielder.
Just days earlier, Postecoglou criticised officiating decisions after his team’s 2-1 loss to Newcastle United. In that match, Tottenham conceded a contentious goal, with Joelinton escaping punishment despite the ball striking his hand during the build-up to Newcastle’s equaliser. Postecoglou argued his team would have prevailed had the game been played “on a fair and even playing field.”
Following the Carabao Cup clash, Postecoglou delivered a detailed critique of VAR and its impact on football, expressing concerns about the inconsistency of officiating decisions. The Tottenham manager shared his belief that such issues are negatively affecting the game.
“So my comments about ‘a fair and even playing ground” that’s what they’re about. So today it advantaged us, yeah? I wasn’t saying that there was a vendetta against me or Tottenham when I spoke last week. That’s not what my comments were about. I could be on a lone crusade here, but I’m happy to do that.
“I’m happy to just be the lone voice of saying: ‘Just leave the game alone for a bit’. Even extra time now, you know, minutes added later on, minutes added on here and there there, minutes, we never used to talk about these things before.
“Yet now everything is changing, so that was my [point]. So today, I can see why Arne would be very disappointed, if that was me, I’d be disappointed as well, but apparently they’re the rules.”
Less than a month ago, Liverpool secured an emphatic 6-3 victory over Tottenham in the Premier League. However, in their most recent encounter, they fell far short of that performance, struggling to create meaningful goalscoring opportunities.
This was despite Tottenham missing key players such as Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, James Maddison, and Pape Matar Sarr.
Postecoglou acknowledged that Tottenham had to endure significant pressure from Liverpool during the match, although this was not part of his original game plan. He remarked:
“When people said my midfield set up was a little bit more conservative today, that’s because I only had three midfielders to choose from. The others weren’t available, so we certainly went about it the same way.”
“Liverpool don’t allow you to dominate the game the way other teams do, our players every three days are playing a game of football, mate, without rest and you saw Liverpool at the end, they put on some significant talent, some really good footballers, some top footballers.
“I couldn’t do the same, and yet the guys who are out there are consistently doing it, so maybe we’re not as dominant as we want it to be, but there’s good reason, not through the lack of trying or different intent in terms of how we went about it.”
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