Postecoglou responds to Spurs fans’ boos and explains ear cupping gesture following defeat to Chelsea | OneFootball

Ange Postecoglou says his ear cupping gesture towards the Spurs fans after his side’s disallowed equaliser against Chelsea was because he wanted to hear them cheer.

Substitute Pape Sarr thought he had equalised against Chelsea when his low shot from distance beat Robert Sanchez but was later ruled out for a foul by the midfielder on Moises Caicedo following a VAR check.

The decision to bring Sarr on in place of Bergvall had been booed by the Tottenham supporters in attendance followed by chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” aimed at the Spurs boss.

And after Sarr had scored, Postecoglou gestured towards the supporters by cupping his hand to his ear.

Asked why he did it, Postecoglou said: “Jesus mate, it’s incredible how things get interpreted. We’d just scored, I just wanted to hear them cheer because we’d been through a tough time, and I thought it was a cracking goal.

“I wanted them to get really excited. I felt at that point we could potentially go on and win the game. I just felt momentum was on our [side].”

On the fans booing his substitutions, he continued: “It doesn’t bother me, it’s not the first time they’ve booed my substitutions or my decisions, that’s fine, they’re allowed to do that.

“But we’d just scored a goal, just scored an equaliser, I was just hoping we could get some excitement. If people want to read into that that somehow I’m trying to make a point about something, like I said, we’d been through a tough time, but I just felt there was a bit of a momentum shift there.

“If they get really behind the lads, I thought we had the momentum to finish on top of them.”

Spurs could have found a late equaliser when Heung-Min Son was denied by Robert Sanchez but Spurs managed just two shots on target in the game.

Postecoglou was keen to stress that his side are still a “work in progress” however given the number of players that have recently returned from injury.

“We had to work hard to stay in the game, we let in a disappointing goal then fought our way back into the game but weren’t able to get anything out of it,” he told Sky Sports.

“It is still a work in progress, the first time we had the whole group in together and in the final third we could’ve been a bit cleaner with our football but for the most part we handled it quite well.

“It’s a tough ask coming here, there was still enough there tonight to show the lads are getting back to the level we need.”