Tottenham Hotspur manager Antonio Conte has claimed that Emerson Royal's red card "killed the game" in Saturday's North London derby defeat to Arsenal.
The Brazilian right-back was given his marching orders in the 62nd minute for a studs-up tackle on Gabriel Martinelli when the Arsenal man had turned back to his own goal.
Despite persistent protests from the Spurs squad, Emerson's red card stood, at which point Spurs were 2-1 down thanks to goals from Thomas Partey and Gabriel Jesus either side of Harry Kane's penalty.
Granit Xhaka added a third for Arsenal against the 10 men of Tottenham, and Conte admitted after the game that Emerson's sending off was the turning point, but he refused to criticise Anthony Taylor's decision.
"I think that the red card killed the game and in my opinion, if I have to complain, it's especially for the first half," football.london quotes Conte as saying in his post-match press conference.
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"In the first half we felt the possibility to win the game. We had a lot of chances and to exploit much better the situation. Every time we played we overcome the pressure and we had a lot of space and many times we made a mistake in the last pass.
"Honestly, I always have said in the past that I don't like to comment on refereeing decisions. I comment on the VAR decision because I think without the monitor and the video it is really really difficult to get the best decision.
"I don't want to comment. The referee decision sometimes you are lucky. For sure the red card killed the game, this is the truth, but not because we remained with 10 men, because the team was a team really really offensive and in those four or five minutes before we could make a substitute it was so offensive that we conceded the third goal."
Tottenham missed the chance to go above Arsenal in the Premier League table on Saturday and now sit four points adrift of their North London rivals in third place after eight matches.
However, Conte still felt that his side had their fair share of chances to win the derby, adding: "I spoke with the players and said to try and move on quickly because sometimes you have a strange game.
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"I think today was a game that after the first half we felt the possibility to win the game because we had the chances that we should exploit much better. In the second half to concede the goal quickly and then the red card, the game changed totally.
"Now I think we have to move on and know we have to take the positivity of this game. Also we have to try and improve the situation that cost us defeat. We have to prepare for the next game, in only three days we have to play against [Eintracht] Frankfurt and this has to be a big push."
Tottenham will aim to bounce back from their first domestic defeat of the campaign when they travel to face Eintracht Frankfurt in Tuesday's Champions League clash.
Emerson will be available for the European encounter, but the ex-Barcelona man is set to serve a three-game domestic suspension, ruling him out of clashes with Brighton & Hove Albion, Everton and Manchester United.
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