Ange Postecoglou said VAR is “diminishing the authority” of referees after Tottenham’s 4-1 home defeat to Chelsea featured nine separate checks leading to 21 minutes of added time.
Spurs fell to their first Premier League loss of the season despite taking an early lead through Dejan Kulusevski as Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were sent off either side of half-time.
Cole Palmer equalised with a 35th-minute penalty after Romero was dismissed on a VAR review for a late tackle on Enzo Fernández before Udogie saw a second yellow for a lunge on Raheem Sterling.
Chelsea struggled to break down Tottenham’s nine-man team until Nicolas Jackson struck a hat trick in the final 15 minutes to give Mauricio Pochettino a victory on his first return to Spurs after being sacked by the club in November 2019.
Asked about the heavy use of VAR on the night, which also saw five goals disallowed, Postecoglou said: “I don’t like it. I don’t like standing around. I don’t like the whole theatre around waiting for decisions.
“But I know that I am in the wilderness with that one. I’m kind of on my own. In my 26 years, I was always prepared to accept the referee’s decision, good, bad or otherwise, and I’ve had some shockers in my career, let me tell you.
“I’ve had some go my way as well, but I just want the game to be played. But when we are complaining about decisions every week, this is what’s going to happen. People are going to forensically scrutinise everything to make sure that they are comfortable, it is right, and even at the end of that we are still not happy.
“So what does that mean? It means we are going to see a lot of people standing around. I just think it is diminishing the authority of the referee. You can’t tell me that referees are in control of the games. They’re not. The control is outside of that.
But that’s the way the game’s going and you have to accept that and just try and get on with it.
“It seems like there isn’t a great call for us to go back to accepting the referee’s decisions for the majority. I understand goal-line technology because that’s a simple one. That came in and no one’s complained about it.”
Postecoglou went on to say that searching for a perfect game where no wrong decisions are made is impossible, while adding that some of the blame belonged on the shoulders of managers who complained about calls week in and week out.
“That’s not new. I’ve been doing this for 26 years,” Postecoglou said. “I’ve heard managers, me included, complain about decisions in the past, but we’ve got on with it. We didn’t feel the need to find some miracle cure for it.
“Like I said, I don’t think that’s a viable option because we seem to have opened that door, allowed technology and now we want transparency.
“I guarantee you the next thing is we’ll have referees mic’d up and explaining decisions. There are plenty of other sports where you can watch referees do that, I don’t think it is about football. Anyway, I think I’m in the wilderness on that one.”