Ange Postecoglou said he was proud of the performance from Spurs despite the club’s unbeaten start coming to an end against Chelsea.
Spurs suffered their first Premier League defeat of the season in a chaotic clash with Chelsea, one which saw the north Londoners reduced to nine men.
Dejan Kulusevski handed Spurs the lead inside six minutes, but Cristian Romero’s red card for a foul on Enzo Fernandez allowed Cole Palmer to equalise from the penalty spot.
It was a London Derby which proved fascinating for the neutrals and was packed full of drama, with a staggering five goals disallowed after VAR checks for either offside or handball.
Spurs then lost James Maddison and Micky van de Ven to injuries on the stroke of half-time, before Destiny Udogie’s second yellow card saw the hosts reduced to nine men shortly after the restart.
Chelsea made their advantage count in the closing stages as the visitors exploited space in behind Spurs’ high defensive line, with Nicolas Jackson putting the Blues ahead on 75 minutes. The Senegalese striker then scored twice during the lengthy period of stoppage time to complete a hat-trick and make it 4-1.
Postecoglou reflected on a pulsating clash at full-time and said he was proud of the effort from his players in difficult circumstances.
“It is pretty hard to process. It is almost impossible to analyse the game because it just seemed to get out of control for large parts of it,” the Australian told Sky Sports.
“Disappointed by the result but really proud of the players, they gave everything and that is the positive we will take.
“We were very close to getting an equaliser a couple of times and it shows their spirit. It was just a bridge too far today.
“I thought we started really well, scored a great goal and inches away from another. The red card affected the game, I felt like I was standing around waiting for things to happen, with VAR intervention. It felt like a lot of standing around.”
On the high number of VAR reviews in the game, Postecoglou added: “There will be a forensic study of every decision out there, I think that is the way the game is going and I don’t like it. If you look at all that standing around we did today, maybe people enjoy that sort of thing but I’d rather see us playing football.”