There’s a lot to talk about after Sunday’s North London Derby, a 2-3 Tottenham defeat to Arsenal at home. The biggest talking point is no doubt the decision by match official Michael Oliver and VAR not to award what appeared to be a penalty on Dejan Kulusevski after Arsenal forward Leandro Trossard tripped him in the Arsenal box. Arsenal regained the ball, immediately counterattacked, and Bukayo Saka scored to put the visitors ahead 2-0.
It was a controversial decision, and the VAR officials came under criticism after the match for not directing Oliver to look at the incident on the monitor. Reversing the call would have meant, for the first time since VAR’s implementation, waiving off a legitimate goal for a reviewed penalty on the opposite end of the field, effectively a two-goal swing.
Just about everyone who watched this match or the highlights, has an opinion about this call. Everyone, that is, except for Dejan Kulusevski, the man who was tripped in the box. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Deki refused to get drawn into commenting on what he did or did not feel during the incident, saying in short that he “just plays”.
“I don’t remember. I just play. If I fall down there’s a reason why I did it. I don’t remember if it was or not.”
Fair enough! Deki actually had a lot more to say about the OTHER controversial play from this match, Micky van de Ven’s equalizing goal that was called back by VAR for a marginal offside. The lead-up to Micky’s shot involved Takehiro Tomiyasu seemingly making a play for the ball and a double-deflection before going into the net, but VAR still deemed to to be offside.
“I really don’t understand the rules in those situations. I can’t believe it. I was there. It touched two Arsenal players and it is still offside. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t know the rules. It was strange. It changes everything from 1-1 to 1-0.
“I don’t think [about celebrating before VAR checks]. [If] we score, we score. Of course from the first day they brought [VAR] in I was not a fan. They chose the rules. I don’t decide. I think it’s not as fun for anybody, the fans, the players, but that is a completely different discussion.”
Deki also suggested that, in the end, the difference between Tottenham and Arsenal on Sunday was the clubs’ respective mentalities.
“It is. It is all in life. That is the only thing that matters. The head. You can be how good you want in football but you’ve got to be strong in every situation. Of course, they, Arsenal have obviously done that in the last period. They fight to win the league. We still have to do that. We are improving in other areas. We still lack a little bit in that part.
“I don’t think it is about ambition. I think everybody wants to win but then you have to sacrifice a lot for that. It is a lot.
“Talking about mentality, do you think it is easy to be down 3-0 at half time and then go out and play 3-2 against the ones that are first? That is also mentality. Second half was unbelievable. We are showing it, it is just that you have to show it for 90 minutes. If not it is difficult. We are showing it in bits but we have to do it much more consistently.”
The result put a significant dent in Tottenham’s odds to make top four and qualify for the Champions League next season, and the road doesn’t get any less rocky from here. Spurs’ next match is away to Chelsea on Thursday, followed by a trip to Anfield and Liverpool on Sunday. Spurs were competitive against Arsenal, but they’ll need to be more than that in the upcoming matches if they want to close out the season on a high.