Assistant referee apologised for failing to spot Fernando Llorente's offside goal, says Swansea manager Carlos Carvalhal

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Swansea City manager Carlos Carvalhal has revealed that the assistant referee apologised to him for not ruling out Fernando Llorente’s opening goal in his side’s 2-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur at Liberty Stadium, as Mauricio Pochettino also admitted that he took Davinson Sanchez off to avoid a second yellow card.

The Premier League’s bottom-placed club were doubly unfortunate with decisions as former player Llorente was clearly offside in heading in from a free-kick after 13 minutes, before an already booked Sanchez clumsily fouled Martin Olsson in the second half but avoided another booking.

Carvalhal referred to both in his post-game press conference, and a “cleverness” from Pochettino that the Spurs boss later admitted to.

“I have just arrived in the Premier League so I won’t talk about referees,” the Swansea manager said. “I will say two points. The linesman apologised at the end of the game. I understand it was a mistake, all of us do mistakes, it’s OK.

“Second point, Pochettino is a clever manager because he substituted Sanchez in that moment. He is clever, and knows why he substituted him. These are two points I want to clarify.”

Pochettino himself clarified this, having brought on Victor Waynama for the young Colombian, but did not admit the second challenge was necessarily a bookable offence.

“Yes, I think we were all worried about the second yellow card,” the Spurs manager said. “When fans, everyone starts to put pressure on the referee, sometimes we try to avoid the problem and prefer to take off.”

He added that Spurs still haven’t been able to assess Danny Rose’s latest injury, and expressed hope that it is just a “small” problem. The full-back missed Tuesday’s 2-0 win away at Swansea City, after a recurrence of the knee injury that kept him out for nine months in 2017, but the Argentine indicated it was not that serious, even if he is expected to miss Thursday’s match against West Ham United.

“We need to assess him,” Pochettino said. “After the game against Southampton it was impossible to train. We need to assess him, then the club will give information about what happened. I am not concerned. Sometimes are small things. In this situation, I am not a specialist, not a doctor. You want your player fit to play, but we wait to see.”

Pochettino meanwhile said it was “important” for Fernando Llorente to get his first league goal for the club, having opened the scoring against his old side, albeit through a header that should have been ruled out for offside.

“Yes, I think it as important for him to score, important for him to feel involved. Every player needs this. It’s fantastic motivation for him.”​