Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou has defended under-fire Premier League referees and warned fans that VAR is "never" going to be perfect following his side's unforgettable 2-1 win over Liverpool in North London.
The Lilywhites maintained their unbeaten start to the season in controversial circumstances on Saturday evening, where Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones was given a straight red card in the 26th minute for a crunching tackle on Yves Bissouma.
Despite going down to 10 men, Jurgen Klopp's side put the ball in the back of the net through Luis Diaz, but the Colombian's effort was ruled out for offside - a decision which the PGMOL have since admitted was incorrect.
After VAR failed to intervene to award Diaz's goal, Son Heung-min tapped home from Richarlison's cutback, but Cody Gakpo's smart turn and finish drew the visitors level on the stroke of the break.
However, referee Simon Hooper was the victim of Liverpool fan fury early in the second half, banishing Diogo Jota from the field for two yellow-card tackles on Destiny Udogie, who appeared to trip himself up on the Portuguese's first offence.
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Nevertheless, the nine men of Liverpool held out extremely well, but with the final attack of the game, Joel Matip turned Pedro Porro's cross into his own net to gift Tottenham all three points and send the disconsolate Reds home empty-handed.
Following the PGMOL's admission of a "significant human error" over Diaz's disallowed goal, Klopp insisted that the statement was worthless, as his side still left the capital with zero points to their name.
In his post-match press conference, Postecoglou did not comment on the individual cases from Saturday's game, but he affirmed that officials will make errors in the same way that players and managers will mess up, no matter whether they have access to technology or not.
"We have to deal with it. The biggest problem I think that we have is that we seem to fail to grasp is that no form of technology is going to make the game errorless. We used to understand that errors were part of the game, including officiating errors," the Australian said.
"You'd have to cop it and some people would cop it better than others but that was part of the game. The game is littered with historical refereeing decisions that weren't right but we all accepted it that it was part of the game because we're dealing with human beings.
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"I think that people are under the misconception that VAR is going to be errorless. I don't think there's any technology, because so much of our game isn't factual. It's down to interpretation and they're still human beings. They're going to make mistakes the same way managers make mistakes, the same way players make mistakes.
"When you put such a high bar on something it invariably is going to fail, so if people are thinking that VAR is going to be something that at some point that is perfect, that's never going to happen.
"We obviously had the man extra and there were a fair few fouls so I think it was an accumulation of things, but they are decisions against another team. I haven't commented on decisions against our team this year and there were a couple of times I felt it could have gone either way so I'll leave it for others to decide if right or wrong."
Postecoglou also allayed fears of a fresh issue to captain Son, who was an injury doubt before the game and was ostensibly struggling as he made his way off the pitch, claiming that the South Korean's withdrawal was pre-planned.
"Look, he wasn't 100% but I had a chat with him yesterday and he was desperate to play. He was going to give what he could and he did. He was never going to play the whole 90, we were always going to give him an hour or so but he led from the front again and he was the one doing the pressing. He got his goal as well so great captain's effort," Postecoglou added.
Spurs - who remain unbeaten in the Premier League this season - occupy second place in the rankings ahead of a trip to newly-promoted Luton Town in seven days' time.
Ben Knapton
