Mourinho Blasts VAR For Allowing Man Utd Penalty Kick To Stand Against Tottenham

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho was unhappy with VAR for allowing Man United’s equalising penalty kick to stand when Paul Pogba was fouled by Eric Dier and for not booking Bruno Fernandes for simulation when the video assistant overturned a second.

Mourinho’s Spurs looked on course for a vital victory over his former side in the race for a Champions League qualifying spot thanks to Steven Bergwijn’s first-half strike.

But sub-Pogba skipped past Dier and into the Spurs penalty area before being knocked to the ground with just 10 minutes remaining

Referee Jon Moss instantly pointed to the spot and VAR allowed the decision to stand, with Bruno Fernandes firing home to make it 1-1 – a result which deals a blow to Tottenham’s hopes of reaching the top five.

Moss awarded another injury-time spot-kick to the visitors after ruling Dier had tripped Fernandes in the box, but Mourinho felt VAR should have gone further than overturning the decision and additionally issued a yellow card to the midfielder.

“I’m not happy with the penalty and I’m also not happy with the second penalty,” he told Sky Sports. “I’m unhappy with the VAR. The referee can make a mistake and give a cheap penalty. But then the VAR is there to do a job.

“In the second penalty, l am unhappy with Moss because he didn’t give the free-kick on Serge [in the build-up to the penalty award]. Then he gave a cheap penalty, a non-penalty, and in this case, the VAR gave the truth.”

Speaking in his post-match press conference, Mourinho expanded on his frustration with the decisions and explained his pre-match thinking against United, who have been given 23 penalties since the start of last season – nine more than any other Premier League side.

He said: “We know that Manchester United have an incredible record this season of penalties given, so we knew that everything in the box was very dangerous for us. We had to be very, very cautious, every shot to block, we knew and were prepared to do it with hands behind the body, we knew it could happen.

“The second penalty is incredible for me. It’s a situation in the box where I feel when the VAR goes for a simulation, the player should immediately be exposed and get a yellow card, but that didn’t happen.

“So I feel really upset with these two decisions, but that’s the way it is.”

Mourinho was more satisfied with the performance of his team, whose winless record was extended to a sixth consecutive game, but who produced some moments of quality with a number of first-team regulars returning from injury after the three-month enforced break.

“What did I like? I like the team attitude, the team organisation, the control, following a plan, being very solid, giving to United what they don’t like and really happy with that,” he told Sky Sports.

“I was unhappy with the fact that the way I was reading the game, I had no bench to react to it. With Lucas and Dele, they would be on the bench or they would be playing, then I would have on the bench some of our attacking players.

“When they become more dominant because we were quite tired upfront, by being tired we couldn’t press, it was easier for them to build and at the same time we couldn’t be dangerous on the counter-attack because we had no legs for that.

So it was hard to manage the game in that sense.”