Swansea City boss Carlos Carvalhal revealed after the game that the linesman apologised to him for allowing Llorente’s offside goal to stand.
The former Swansea City striker nodded in Eriksen’s free-kick cross from the left. The Spaniard was clearly offside but the linesman, who along with the referee Bobby Madley had an awful evening and showed no balance of decision-making between the two sides.
Carvalhal also made a worthy point about the referee who didn’t show a second yellow card to Sanchez, before Pochettino quickly brought him off to avoid a possible sending off.
Spurs didn’t look like their usual sharp, free-flowing selves as they were unable to cause Fabianski too many problems, but they were still in control as the Swans were setup with five at the back in the hope of keeping the game at 0-0 before committing more players forward in the latter stages.
The tactics might have done enough to get a point with better officials, as the second goal also saw some luck as Alli knew very little about his goal as his initial effort was saved by Fabianski but came back off Alli and into the net.
Despite the defeat, Carvalhal was proud of his players, as they finally showed some desire and attacking potential after an uninspiring and super-defensive opening 45 minutes.
“I have just arrived in the Premier League and I don`t want to start talking about the referees, but there are two points I can make,” Carvalhal said.
“One, the linesman apologised at the end of the game about the first goal. I understand it`s a mistake and we all make them.
“Secondly, I think Pochettino is a clever manager – he substituted Sanchez at that moment.
“He is clever. He knows why. After this I don`t talk about anything (to do with the referee).
“I am very happy with my players, with the commitment, the attitude and the organisation they showed.
“I am very happy with what they did so far. It was a difficult situation tonight. We played three days ago but Tottenham played six days ago. That makes a massive difference.
“We also had a lot of injured players. But while we got a bit of luck against Watford, we didn`t get any luck tonight.”
Carvalhal commented on the defensive setup in the first half, conceding that he didn’t have strikers and planned to ‘block’ Spurs to begin with.
“We had a problem in attack. We didn`t have any strikers so that`s why we tried to block Tottenham in the first half,”
“I thought we did that okay – I don`t think Lukasz (Fabianski) had to make a save.
“Tottenham had a lot more possession, but we defended well. The negative in the first half was that we must keep the ball better and we have to be better in the transitions.
“The second half was completely different. We started putting attacking players on – Oliver (McBurnie), Luciano (Narsingh) and Wayne (Routledge).
“We finished with two strikers, two wingers and Renato (Sanches) and (Sam) Clucas in the middle.
“We created two very clear situations to score. That was our moment in the game but the goal did not come.
“Then as we pushed up the field some more spaces opened up and Tottenham scored a second.”
It was another defeat but like Carvalhal says, there was some positives to be pleased about at last. We’ve been lacking that sort of attacking intent all season and despite a lack of attacking quality available in the team, we were still able to create some decent chances, as Dyer and van der Hoorn went closest.
Share this article
Related Articles
