Ange Postecoglou denied he was goading his own supporters in Tottenham Hotspur’s derby defeat at Chelsea, in which he cupped his ear towards the away end after they had booed his substitutions.
Postecoglou bizarrely claimed he made the gesture towards the Spurs fans simply because he “wanted to hear them cheer” after Pape Matar Sarr had scored an equaliser, which was then overturned a few minutes later.
The Spurs fans had loudly booed Postecoglou and chanted “you don’t know what you’re doing” after he had replaced teenage midfielder Lucas Bergvall with Sarr in the 64th minute at Stamford Bridge.
When Sarr found the net a few minutes later, the Spurs head coach turned towards those away fans and cupped his ear in their direction. The goal was then ruled out after a lengthy VAR delay, with Sarr judged to have committed a foul in the build-up.
Asked about his gesture, Postecoglou said: “Jesus mate, it’s incredible how things get interpreted. We had just scored, I just wanted to hear them cheer.
“Because we had been through a tough time, and I thought it was a cracking goal. I wanted them to get really excited. I felt at that point we could potentially go on and win the game. I just felt momentum was on our [side].
“It doesn’t bother me. It’s not the first time they’ve booed my substitutions or my decisions. That’s fine, they’re allowed to do that. But we had just scored a goal, just scored an equaliser, I was just hoping we could get some excitement.
“If people want to read into that, that somehow I’m trying to make a point about something… like I said, we had been through a tough time, but I just felt there was a bit of a momentum shift there. If they got really behind the lads, I thought we had the momentum to finish on top of them.”
Postecolgou insisted it was not his intention to risk “alienating” the Spurs supporters, who have watched their team put together a run of just three victories and nine defeats in their past 14 league games.
“You know what, I am at such a disconnect with the world these days that who knows, maybe you’re right [about the danger of alienating the supporters],” he said. “I don’t know. But that’s not what my intention was.”
Postecolgou was once again left furious with the impact of VAR on the game, saying that football will be refereed “by AI [artificial intelligence] very soon”.
“Whether I think it’s a foul or not, what does it matter?” he said of Sarr’s equaliser being eventually overruled because of a foul on Chelsea midfielder Moisés Caicedo.
“What matters is VAR was called in for ‘clear and obvious errors’. How long did it take tonight? Six minutes, for a ‘clear and obvious error’. Who cares if it’s a foul or not? What’s the point of having a referee then? ‘Clear and obvious’ to me is: you go to the screen, you see it, ‘Oh my God, I missed that’.
“It’s going to be referee by AI very soon. We may as well dispense of the players at some point. Someone will come up with a genius way of having a game of football with no participants. Referees aren’t refereeing. If anyone believes when VAR was brought in, that we would be sitting around for six minutes with a microscope… it’s irrelevant if it was a foul or not.”
Enzo Fernandez’s second-half header ultimately proved the difference between the two sides on a ferocious night. The victory took Chelsea above Manchester City and into fourth place in the Premier League, with the race for the Champions League places in their control.
Enzo Maresca’s side, who were boosted by the return to the side of key striker Nicolas Jackson, have now won three of their past four matches in the league.
“The result is an important part because we are close to the end of the season,” said Maresca. “At the same time we try to achieve the result playing in the way we want to play.
“At some moments the team was very good, then we don’t like to finish the game like we did in the last five minutes. If we want to become an important team we need to win in a dirty way, an ugly way, and [I’m] quite happy. In the last 10 minutes I think the team showed effort, togetherness, spirit and it’s something that we need.”
