Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou ‘says we have to accept the referee’s decision’ after home loss to Chelsea

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou has called for an end to the questioning of officials’ decisions in order to prevent their authority being undermined.

Spurs had two players sent off in the 4-1 defeat at home to Chelsea – their first loss of the Premier League season – but refused to criticise referee Michael Oliver.

However, after a first half which had 12 minutes added on due to several VAR checks, the Australian felt a number of incidents have led to an overuse of technology.

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta called Newcastle’s winning goal against his team after three VAR checks a “disgrace” on Saturday and the club issued a statement calling for the standard of officiating to be “urgently addressed.

“Decisions are decisions: you either accept it or you don’t,” Postecoglou told Sky Sports.

“Some of it is self-inflicted [but] if we are going to go out and complain about bad decisions every week what will happen is what happened today: a forensic study of every decision.

“I think that’s the way the game is going. I don’t like it – I could be a lone voice as I’m told that’s the way forward. With VAR intervention it just felt like a lot of standing around.

“At some point we have to accept the referee’s decision. This constant erosion of referees’ authority, this is what the game is going to get: they will not have any authority, it is going to get diminished and we are going to be in the control of someone a few miles away watching a TV screen.”

Spurs had led through Dejan Kulusevski’s sixth-minute deflected goal and had a second from Heung-min Son ruled out for offside by VAR.

But when Cristian Romero was sent off for a challenge on Enzo Fernandez which allowed Cole Palmer to equalise from the penalty spot the game changed and a reckless second yellow card for Destiny Udogie early in the second half left the hosts with an uphill battle.

They held out until the 75th minute when Nicolas Jackson scored the first goal of his hat-trick, adding two more deep into added time.

“It’s pretty hard to process because it’s almost impossible to analyse the game,” added Postecoglou.

“You’re left disappointed with the result but proud of the efforts of the players and that is the positive we will take out of it.”

Neville: PL needs to act and protect officials after ‘dangerous’ club VAR statements

Speaking ahead of Spurs’ defeat to Chelsea on Monday Night Football, Gary Neville called on the Premier League to act and protect its referees after labelling the statements from Liverpool and Arsenal on VAR “dangerous”.

Arsenal urged the PGMOL to “urgently address the standard of officiating in the Premier League” in an unprecedented statement for the club, after Newcastle beat the Gunners via a controversial winner on Saturday.

Anthony Gordon’s second-half strike was enough to beat Mikel Arteta’s side despite a four-minute VAR check to analyse three talking points with the goal – whether the ball went out of play, a potential foul by Joelinton and an offside on Gordon.

There were also controversial potential red-card incidents involving Kai Havertz and Bruno Guimaraes as temperatures reached boiling point at St James’ Park and it led to Arteta telling Sky Sports after the game that the awarding of the goal was a “disgrace” and “embarrassing” for the officials – and on Sunday, Arsenal came out as a club to support the manager.

It follows a similar statement from Liverpool after refereeing standards in the Premier League once again came under intense scrutiny after VAR admitted a mistake to rule out Luis Diaz’s ‘offside’ goal for Liverpool at Tottenham in September.

Speaking on Monday Night Football, Gary Neville believes officials are being “significantly and seriously undermined” by statements from clubs, and he insists the Premier League needs to get tough on this situation.

“I thought the statement [from Arsenal] was really poor,” the former Manchester United defender told MNF. “I thought the same the other week.

“Liverpool had a shocking one go against them a few weeks ago at Spurs, and we knew it was wrong at the time. They had a lot to feel hard done by. But the following day when Liverpool wrote their statement mentioning sporting integrity, mentioning they were looking at all options and then the suggestion of a replay, I thought that was quite dangerous.

“The Arsenal statement is quite dangerous.

“All clubs have signed up to a new behavioural charter at the start of the season. I’m not saying referees shouldn’t be put under pressure or that Mikel Arteta, and other managers, shouldn’t feel aggrieved at the end of matches. What I am saying is that the clubs themselves should behave better in these circumstances.

“I’m looking at the Premier League now and the leadership of the Premier League because the reality is they have got to start protecting referees,” Neville added.

“At the very beginning I was excited by the new transparency, the apologies to managers and the fact the referees were communicating to the clubs, but in return what they are getting is significantly and seriously undermined by their own clubs.

“The Premier League have to get this in order. The other clubs have to get the clubs that are writing these letters in order because this is unchartered territory the idea of these letters being written and the statements.

“To me, it feels like Arteta has gone off on one on Saturday, which is fine because he’s emotional, and he’s almost gone to his board on the Sunday and said you need to back me. They’ve fallen for it.

“Arsenal is an institution as a football club. It’s a massive, great and wonderful football club with huge history. They should behave better than that and whoever it is that has sanctioned that statement will feel disappointed in a few years.

“I do think the Premier League has to come down on their clubs. They have to say to them that they expect a lot better than this.”