Tottenham vs Chelsea LIVE: Premier League result and reaction as late Nicolas Jackson hat-trick sinks 9-man Spurs

When Mauricio Pochettino was asked about Ange Postecoglou’s surprisingly high line a nine, he wasn’t too willing to get into it. The Chelsea manager instead pointed to his side’s own impact on proceedings, how proud he was. He probably wasn’t the only one unwilling to indulge too much praise of Tottenham Hotspur, after a 4-1 defeat Postecoglou’s side unnecessarily lost control of.

There is already that sense of rival fans, if for rather obvious tribal reasons, bristling at the regular appeals to “mate”. The explanation of that high line was probably extreme Postecoglou, the Australian in his ultimate form.

“It is just who we are, mate, it is who we will be for as long as I am here,” the Spurs manager said on TV. “If we go down to five men, we will still have a go.”

Ange Postecoglou has called on football to start respecting referee’s decisions or risk losing officials entirely to technology, in what appeared to be a barb directed at Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta.

Postecoglou watched on as his Tottenham side fell to pieces against Chelsea on Monday night. Defenders Cristian Romero and were both sent off as nine-man Spurs slumped to a 4-1 defeat.

It followed Arsenal’s 1-0 weekend defeat by Newcastle, which meant Manchester City were able to climb above both north London clubs to the top of the table with their 6-1 win over Bournemouth.

But where Arteta was furious with decisions which he felt went against his side, and was backed up by an Arsenal club statement criticising the quality of officiating in the Premier League, Postecoglou warned that referees need more respect because criticism is “eroding their authority” on field.

Tottenham manager, Ange Postecoglou, says he ‘does not like’ the amount of time it takes for VAR to come to their decisions in the Premier League as his team’s clash with Chelsea was disrupted several times over contentious issues.

Chelsea eventually triumphed 4-1 in the contest in north London as Spurs were shown two red cards, the first coming after a review by the video referee in which Cristian Romero was dismissed.

There were also three goals disallowed in the game and multiple checks for serious foul play which accumulated to 21 minutes of added time across both halves.

Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino, speaking to BBC Sport: “This is football. We won and deserved it. The technology is there and we need to accept. Many things happen on the pitch and you need to verify and check.

“Look at the game between Tottenham and Liverpool here, Tottenham won in the last minute. I think we deserve the credit. Tottenham are doing fantastic but tonight I think we were the better team.

“It is amazing for him and really important to build confidence.

“I think 4-1 in the end we deserved the victory and the three points and it is really important because we have a really important game next with Manchester City.

“It is clear from the beginning we didn’t have the whole squad. This momentum we need to build and on Sunday we have another opportunity to show we are in a good way.”

Chelsea hat-trick hero Nicolas Jackson speaking to Sky Sports: “I am very happy and it has been a difficult time for everybody in the team. We are coming back really slowly and happy to have scored three goals. It’s my first hat-trick, so I am happy to have done it with the biggest club in England and everywhere.

“I need to always improve and work harder. We continue working. Tottenham have an amazing stadium and amazing fans, so we needed to fight and win the game.

“It was really difficult as they continued to maintain their line [when down to 9-men]. We have quality players to give us the ball and we won. We were dreaming about winning the big games and the confidence within the team is coming really slowly.”

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou, speaking to BBC Sport: “There was a fair bit going on, a lot of VAR intervention, a hard game for me to analyse but I am very proud of the players. Right to the end they were trying to create something for us.

“The players couldn’t give any more than they did, part of this game is will, effort and determination and they showed that.”

On VAR decisions and time taken to make them: “I don’t like it, it is the way the game is going. Some of it is self inflicted because if we come out every week complaining about decision that is what will happen, every decision gets forensically checked and we will be sitting around for a long time in every game trying to figure out what is going on.

“I don’t like it but I am probably in the wilderness with that because I keep getting told that’s where we want to go. I am too old school, I’ll respect the referee’s decision right or wrong. But it is the way the game is going.

On Maddison injury: “He got a knock on the ankle, we were down one man already. It made sense to make a couple of changes at that point.”

A farce that sums up a lot of modern football, or one of the games of the season? It maybe sums up how confusing and contradictory this game was that it could genuinely be both. Chelsea’s eventual 4-1 victory at Tottenham Hotspur could have huge effects for both of their seasons too. Mauricio Pochettino’s side have got the win it feels like they have been waiting for, and that at the stadium that still means more to him than any other in football. Ange Postecoglou’s scarcely believable high line with nine men and no main centre-halves did make it border-line for some time. Such a creditable approach earned the applause of the home crowd when it finally went wrong for Nicolas Jackson’s decisive second goal, but there was that unsettling feeling of momentum being undone. Spurs have not just lost their first league game under Postecoglou but also Destiny Udogie and Sergio Romero to suspensions and possibly James Maddison and Micky van de Ven to injury.

That all has the feeling of bringing down a flight that had been improbably soaring for some time.

Postecoglou could of course tell his players it was a freak game. That’s one way of putting it. It was almost several different events in one, as we saw a spell akin to the infamous Battle of the Bridge as well as Saturday’s Copa Libertadores final, a grand staging for every debate about VAR over and over and then what amounted to a bizarre but brave training session, where Postecoglou seemingly set up the irrepressible Guglielmo Vicario against the entirety of Chelsea’s young attack.

To top it off, and turn everything on its head, the previously misfiring Jackson got a hat-trick late on.

More from Ange Postecoglou on VAR decisions: “There will be a forensic study of every decision out there, I think that is the way the game is going and I don’t like it. If you look at all that standing around we did today, maybe people enjoy that sort of thing but I’d rather see us playing football.”

On Tottenham sending offs: “You have to accept the referee’s decision, that is how I grew up. This constant erosion of the referee’s authority is where the game is going to get - they are not going to have any authority. We are going to be under the control of someone with a tv screen a few miles away.

“The decision is the decision. In 26 years I have had plenty of bad decisions, I have had plenty fall in my favour. It is what it is.”

On playing with a high line down to nine men: “It is just who we are mate, it is who we are and who we will be for as long as I am here. If we go down to five men we will have a go.”

Tottenham boss Ange Postecoglou speaking to Sky Sports: “It is pretty hard to process. It is almost impossible to analyse the game because it just seemed to get out of control for large parts of it. Disappointed by the result but really proud of the players, they gave everything and that is the positive we will take.

“We were very close to getting an equaliser a couple of times and it shows their spirit. It was just a bridge too far today.

“I thought we started really well, scored a great goal and inches away from another. The red card affected the game, I felt like I was standing around waiting for things to happen, with VAR intervention. It felt like a lot of standing around.”

90+9 mins: This is the end. The score is heavily in favour of Chelsea but Tottenham’s persistance to play their way made this encounter extremely entertaining.

Ange Postecoglou suffers his first defeat as Spurs boss but he’ll be proud of the players who dug deep until the end. Nicolas Jackson’s late goals put a dampener on things but the bottom line is that Mauricio Pochettino’s return to north London is a successful one.