Tottenham boss Postecoglou laments VAR as Romero and Udogie sent off in Chelsea defeat

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou said VAR is "diminishing the authority" of referees after seeing his team lose in the Premier League for the first time this season against Chelsea.

A 4-1 win for the Blues over their London rivals told only half the story of a match that featured five disallowed goals, two red cards, a penalty and two Spurs players forced off during the first half with injury.

But the match was dominated by VAR’s involvement with the red cards being two of nine decisions referred to the video referee.

Even with nine men, the hosts continued to take the game to Chelsea and were well in the contest before Nicolas Jackson twice sprung their high line in stoppage time to add his team’s third and fourth goals and complete an unlikely hat-trick.

Postecoglou’s team had dominated the early exchanges and led through a Dejan Kulusevski goal on six minutes. They maintained that control until defender Cristian Romero was shown a red card for a dangerous tackle on his fellow Argentine Enzo Fernandez on 33 minutes.

Moises Caicedo's blast from the edge of the area beat Guglielmo Vicario, but VAR ruled Jackson was offside and it still came to Chelsea's aid.

As the VAR check went on, Romero's challenge on Fernandez just before Caicedo's shot was adjudged to be a penalty, with the defender dismissed for his studs-up follow-through on the Chelsea midfielder's shin.

Cole Palmer's spot-kick was almost saved by Vicario but it had enough power to elude his grasp as it went in via the post.

There was more hold-up in play as Chelsea's Raheem Sterling and Tottenham's Son Heung-min both had goals disallowed by VAR for handball and offside respectively.

Spurs were reduced to nine men 10 minutes into the second half when