Ange Postecoglou hit back at the suggestion that managers should be involved in improving the officiating of football after Spurs were beaten 4-1 by rivals Chelsea.
Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were both sent off on a chaotic evening at the London Stadium which included numerous VAR checks.
Postecoglou has been outspoken against the use of VAR in football and believes the authority of referees on the pitch has now diminished, but says managers should not get involved in trying to improve officiating.
“See, that’s the problem. Premier League managers should just manage their football clubs,” he said.
“I’ve never and I never will talk to a referee about the rules of the game. I was taught that you grow up and you respect the officials.
“You know what managers do? I’ll tell you what managers do, me included. We try and find ways to bend the rules to get around them. Tell me what the rule is and I guarantee you’ll have a room full of managers processing ‘how can I get around this?’
“We’re not the right people. I get that people keep saying that but I don’t agree with it. What I want is the best officials always being upskilled to officiate the game.
“I think it’s so hard for a referee to officiate these days. Their authority is just constantly getting diminished.
“I grew up afraid of referees. They were like policemen. But nowadays I guess we talk back to policemen as well.
“Like I said, I’m old school mate so I’m of a bygone era and I just love the purity of the game but that’s not what’s going on and part of this is my problem. I’ve got to embrace it and find a way to work with it but it goes against everything I want.
“I want my team to play fast, attacking, high tempo, go at it football. If we get a red card and it’s a penalty against us, so what? Let’s cop it and let’s go again.
“But then we have to stand around for two minutes to figure out if something was offside or not. Let the linesman make the decision.
“Remember it used to be the benefit of the doubt. Do we all remember that, to the striker? We all lived with it, the game didn’t collapse.
“But like I said, I’m like an old man shouting at the clouds, mate.”
Tottenham’s defeat saw a total of five goals disallowed for different reasons along with several VAR checks for other decisions which added 12 minutes onto the end of the first half.
And the Spurs boss reiterated that he is not a fan of the time it is taking to reach decisions.
“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, and I’ve had some go my way as well,” he said.
“But I’d cop that because I just wanted the game to be played but when we’re complaining about decisions every week, this is what’s going to happen. People are just going to forensically scrutinise everything to make sure that they’re comfortable it’s right and even at the end of that, we’re still not happy.
“So what does that mean? It means we’re going to see a lot of standing around and I just think it’s diminishing the authority of the referee.
“You can’t tell me that referees are in control of games now. They’re not. The control is outside of that but that’s the way the game is going, so you kind of have to accept that and just try and deal with it.”
