Tottenham Hotspur has Xavi Simons and Cristian Romero sent off in their 2-1 loss against Liverpool in the Premier League.
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Tottenham Hotspur boss Thomas Frank believes that Hugo Ekitike’s decisive goal being allowed to stand was even worse than the two red cards his side received in their loss to Liverpool.
The Reds delivered a 2-1 victory over Spurs in North London to move up to fifth in the Premier League table. Arne Slot’s side were given a huge advantage when Xavi Simons was sent-off for the hosts in the 33rd minute. Simons had initially been given a yellow card for catching Virgil van Dijk but it was upgraded to a red after a VAR review.
Alexander Isak put Arne Slot’s visitors in front in the 56th minute and Ekitike doubled the advantage 10 minutes later. However, Tottenham remonstrated that the France international pushed Cristian Romero when challenging for a header.
Romero was booked for his protests and although they were down to 10 men, Spurs reduced the arrears through Richarlison. And despite Romero being given his marching orders for a second caution, Tottenham were dominant in stoppage-time and went close to an equaliser.
While Frank took plenty of positives from Spurs’ performance, he could not believes that VAR did not intervene for Ekitike’s goal. He said: “ think overall it was a good performance tonight. Proud of the players and the team and how they responded. I actually think the first 30 (minutes) was also good from us and how we responded to setbacks through the game. It’s something we have been working very hard on because that is the biggest thing the best teams need to do. How do we respond to setbacks during a game because the best teams deal with it and move on and keep going. Stick to the plan, we talked about it before, structure and everything. Today we did that excellently. There was great personality and character in the team.
“The first red which I have seen before, I also said before definitely a few times at Brentford and I have seen others, I don’t like this as a red card. I think the game is, probably too big to say gone, but for me it’s not reckless and it’s not exceptional force. He is chasing Van Dijk. He is trying to put pressure and then he changes direction. Unfortunately his foot is on (Van Dijk’s) Achilles. You can say ‘ah, you need to be smarter, don’t do it and all that’ but so are we not allowed to have physical contact anymore? The next thing on that is if he gets three games, which I don’t understand, how can he get three games for something which is not reckless? That is absolutely wrong and we probably can’t appeal it.
“(We) responded excellently to that. Then 1-0 goal, we kept going. I think the second goal is a mistake from the ref. I think there are two hands in the back. Clear two hands in the back. I don’t understand how you can do that. Everywhere else you have seen that a thousand times out there on the pitch, someone will go up for a header, a goal kick into the centre-back, two hands in the back ‘boom’ foul. But apparently not in the penalty box. I think that was the biggest mistake in my opinion and from VAR but apparently that was not enough. We kept going.”
Liverpool boss Arne Slot admitted that fouls like the one made Simons made have not resulted in red cards against other opponents. Frank felt that referee John Brooks’ decision was harsh. He added: “That's why it's probably good Arne and I are agreeing on that one. So yeah, that's of course disappointing. I think it's harsh to say, because if it was intentional or a very stupid tackle, which I don't think it is, then it's one thing. So I just think it's too harsh. A tackle like that can be three games.”