Ange Postecoglou has revealed that Tottenham Hotspur have had conversations with the PMGOL to seek clarification regarding the pushing and shoving that Guglielmo Vicario has been dealing with during set-pieces.
Over the past few weeks, teams have seemingly targeted the Italian during corner kicks and indirect free-kicks, with none doing it more blatantly than Everton last week.
Sean Dyche’s men put Jack Harrison on the Tottenham goalkeeper during each of their corner-kicks, thus making it difficult for him to step out of his line.
Postecoglou believes that previously, Spurs would have been offered free-kicks for obstruction for the incidents against Everton and Man City but suggested that the officials have suddenly decided not to protect goalkeepers as much.
Speaking about those incidents, the Tottenham head coach told Football.London: “I haven’t [had conversations with the officials]. I struggle with that stuff. Like I’ve said before, I’ve kind of always been the one who says you’ve got to respect the referee’s decision or the umpire’s, but I think we have sent some stuff to get some clarification.
“I’m going to get called out for this, but there was a thing that was quite evident in the game that the goalkeeper was a protected species. I don’t think that’s just me making that up. The reason people used to say that was that if you really impeded a goalkeeper in any way in the six-yard box, you are going to get a foul. I knew that as a player, I knew that as a manager.
“There seems to be a shift there. Somebody will say to me that the rules haven’t changed but I think there’s been a shift there where now… to me, it’s obstruction. If you’re standing in front of a goalkeeper stopping him before a ball has even arrived, in layman’s terms that’s obstruction. Now someone is going to tell me that that’s not a law either, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Vicario is not being protected by the referees
Postecoglou admitted that it was ‘bizarre’ that at a time when defenders are required to be extra careful inside the box due to VAR, the referees have suddenly stopped pulling up players for obstructing goalkeepers.
He continued: “It was something that I kind of thought was part of the game. I’ve seen it in general play, I’ve seen our guys get blocked trying to close people down by other people and I’m finding it bizarre that it’s not being pulled up anymore.
“With the goalkeepers, what’s that going to do now? Well, it’s pretty much opened it up that you can surround the goalkeeper and crowd him and put balls on top of him and just wait for the scramble to finish and see what happens.”
Vicario has come in for quite a lot of criticism over recent weeks, with some pundits insisting that his weakness in dealing with set-pieces has been exposed (TNT Sports 1- 03/02/24) via The Mail).
However, Postecoglou refused to criticise his number one and insisted that he was proud of the way the 27-year-old dealt with corners at Goodison Park.
When asked about the Italian, he said: “I was really proud of Vic the other day. I think they had nine corners after we conceded and I think he dealt with just about every other one by coming out and actually having a crack at it rather than just standing on his line and saying, ‘No, I don’t want to get exposed’.
“I can’t praise him highly enough over the way he handled it, and the whole thing where people say ‘you’ve got to be stronger’, well, what does that mean? If he pushes or does anything to a player, with VAR, you’ve got no chance. You’re going to get a penalty against you.
“We’re telling our players now ‘just be careful in the box, they’re looking for everything with VAR, you’re not going to get away with a little shirt pull or a little push’. So how are goalkeepers supposed to be stronger in that sense when you’ve got somebody standing next to you obstructing you doing your job? If there’s contact before the ball arrives, I thought that was obstruction.
“Like I said, I’ll get called out for this because I’m probably behind the times and maybe there’s been a rule change, but there’s definitely been a shift as I see it where we’ve definitely had two goals, maybe three, [against us] that maybe in the past would have been fouls on the goalkeeper, and it’s not just in our games, I’ve seen it in other games too.
“We’ve just got to adapt and adjust to it and deal with it the best way we can because obviously there’s been a shift in the way that’s been dealt with.”
Spurs Web Opinion
While Postecoglou’s point is a fair one, he and his coaching staff should have seen what was happening last week after Everton’s first couple of corner-kicks and put a man between Harrison and Vicario.
The fact that they failed to see the danger and react quickly ended up costing a goal. One would expect Spurs to make that change for this afternoon’s clash against Brighton.