Matt Doherty has questioned the decision to disallow Harry Kane’s first-half strike in Tottenham’s 2-0 defeat against Chelsea on Sunday. Tottenham were not happy at all about Paul Tierney’s decision and some players duly confronted him at half-time and before the restart, with head coach Antonio Conte not happy in his post-match press conference about the “incredible” call to disallow the strike. Giving his thoughts on the 2-0 defeat after the game in west London, Doherty was asked about the big talking point and claimed that he believed the linesman had actually given the foul on Thiago Silva rather than the referee.
Matt Doherty said: “For sure. I didn’t realise that there was even suspicions of a foul when the ball went in. I haven’t see it back actually so I don’t actually know what it was for.”
When told that there was a hand in Thiago Silva’s back that saw the goal controversially ruled out,
Matt Doherty added: “Well, I don’t even think they were appealing too toughly for it. It was strange because I heard the linesman gave the foul not the referee and the referee was standing five yards away.”
Feeling that they should have been 1-0 up at the break courtesy of Kane’s strike, Conte’s men found themselves behind two minutes after the restart following Hakim Ziyech’s curling effort from outside the box. Eight minutes later and it was two after Thiago Silva converted Mason Mount’s inswinging free-kick to double the advantage. Spurs felt the foul for the free-kick was soft but Doherty bemoaned his side’s failure to defend the delivery as they conceded from yet another set piece.
Matt Doherty said: “Yeah, we feel it was soft. Again I haven’t see it back but we still conceded from a set piece. It’s not good enough, we’ve conceded from too many. I think it’s four or five games now quite recently where we’ve conceded from them, they’re cheap, sloppy goals to give teams. It’s hard, Premier League is a tough division and when you give people goals like that it’s not easy.”
