Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Football London
Football London
Sport
Lee Wilmot

What Mauricio Pochettino said about VAR in January and now after Spurs draw with Man City

Tottenham have once again benefited from a VAR decision against Manchester City.

There were jubilant scenes in April when an injury-time Raheem Sterling goal in the Champions League quarter-final was chalked off because Sergio Aguero was offside in the build-up.

And it has happened again, this time in the Premier League on only the second weekend of VAR being in England's top flight.

After completely dominating Tottenham, but finding themselves pegged back to 2-2, Gabriel Jesus it was this time who thought he had won it, with an injury-time strike, only for VAR to intervene and rule it out because the ball came off Aymeric Laporte's arm before it reached Jesus.

And what Spurs boss Mauricio Pochettino said after the game will have put a smile on Tottenham fans' faces.

"I am in love with the VAR!"he laughed.

But he went on to say: "That's not true. I wasn’t in agreement at the beginning with it, but of course sometimes you benefit from it.

"We cannot stop the evolution of the technology. We need to accept we’re living in a different era, we have to accept technology is in football now. It was a benefit for us today."

Spurs player ratings vs Man City

And Pochettino alluded to his previous thoughts on VAR.

The Spurs boss was not convinced by it, even after Spurs benefited in the Champions League quarter-final last season.

After that win he said: "It is difficult after the game to be relaxed or calm. You need to trust in the VAR when it is against or for you.

"The decision to include VAR in football is going to change the game a little bit. I am pro the basis and trying to help the referees and maybe one year ago I was a little bit worried."

He was worried.

Spurs benefited from a decision in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Chelsea and Pochettino said: "I don't like the VAR.

"Today we get the benefit of it but after watching the World Cup and another league like La Liga I see that nobody is happy from day one that they started to use it.

"To get the benefit is nice but I am unhappy to win the game like this."

And following that, the Spurs boss called for it to be postponed in the Premier League.

"It is a good idea to delay [VAR’s introduction to the Premier League] because if we don’t have all the information or don’t know how it will work or how we can better develop the system, it is better to stop for one year or more.

"Nobody in Europe is happy with VAR and what worries me is that there is going to be a situation where football starts to annoy the fans. If you stop for five minutes for a decision, I don’t know how they are going to behave."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.