LONDON — Ange Postecoglou moved to quell any anger that may have been building towards him from Tottenham fans on Thursday night, insisting that he had not been firing back at the away end but instead calling for more support in Spurs’ 1-0 loss at Chelsea.
Postecoglou appeared to mock the travelling Tottenham contingent in the immediate aftermath of what looked like a stunning equalizer at Stamford Bridge. Pape Matar Sarr had won possession off Moises Caicedo before driving a thunderous strike past Robert Sanchez in the 70th minute, prompting the Spurs manager to gesture to supporters, some of whom had been chanting “you don’t know what you’re doing” only a few moments earlier.
That had come in response to Postecoglou’s decision to replace Lucas Bergvall and Wilson Odobert with Sarr and Brennan Johnson. Any sense of vindication that the Tottenham manager felt soon evaporated when it became apparent that the equalizer would be ruled out for a knee-high tackle by Sarr.
There had certainly been tension in the aftermath of what should have been a celebratory moment, with captain Heung-min Son having to push Sarr towards the away end to ensure he got to celebrate the goal that wasn’t. Postecoglou, however, insisted that he had only been trying to rally fans for a match he thought they might then win.
“It’s incredible how things get interpreted,” said Postecoglou. “We just scored. I just wanted to hear them cheer. We’ve 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 way. [The booing] 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 just scored a goal.
“I was just hoping that we could get some excitement. If people want to read into that, that somehow I’m trying to make a point about something, [they can]. We’ve been through a tough time, but I just felt there was a bit of a momentum shift there. If they get really behind the lads, I thought we had the momentum to finish on top of them.”
Defeat at Stamford Bridge made it four Premier League games without a win for Tottenham, who find themselves moored in 14th, as near to the relegation zone as seventh. This loss was their 20th in all competitions this season, as many as they lost between August 2016 and September 2018 under Mauricio Pochettino. Though there have been murmurs of disapproval for Postecoglou in recent weeks, chants directed at the manager seemed notable.
“It just doesn’t affect me,” said Postecoglou. “If that’s what the fans feel, and if they feel that I’m not doing a good job, then they’ve got every right to express it. They pay their hard-earned [money].
They follow the club. They’re the ones that will be here long after I’m gone. So it doesn’t affect me. What I kind of try and focus on is the things I can control. I can’t control fans. I can’t control many things but I can control our football and the way we play and the way we conduct ourselves, and that’s what I concentrate on.”
Postecoglou repeated his complaints about VAR after what proved to be a lengthy wait for Craig Pawson to conclude that Sarr had fouled Caicedo. He bemoaned a process that had seen officials “sitting around for six minutes with a microscope”, adding that it was “irrelevant” whether or not the Tottenham midfielder had fouled his Chelsea opponent.
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