Lucas Bergvall wasn’t sent off against Liverpool and was able to score ’s winning goal because the referee didn’t deem his second foul to be reckless, according to .

Tottenham claimed of the Carabao Cup semi-final on Wednesday night thanks to Bergvall’s late finish from Dominic Solanke’s pass. The 86th-minute strike came after the 18-year-old midfielder had escaped a second booking for a poor challenge on Kostas Tsimikas.

were furious with the decision by referee Stuart Attwell, who played advantage to the away side but chose not to dismiss Bergvall. Slot’s assistant Sipke Hulshoff was booked for his protests and Liverpool captain after the full-time whistle.

Tsimikas was still off the pitch when Bergvall beat Alisson for the game’s only goal, giving Liverpool a real sense of injustice to dwell upon as Slot suffered just his second loss in 29 games as manager. Asked by Sky Sports if he’d spoken to the referee, Slot replied: "No, the fourth official told me why he thought it wasn't a second yellow and, of course, he heard that probably from the referee.

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“What we can say about it is that he said he (Bergvall) didn't stop the counter-attack. Every manager would prefer a second yellow to a counter-attack that goes on without one player and that still needs to go 80 yards, maybe.

“The second thing is that if you stop a counter-attack with a reckless challenge then he could still give a yellow, but he didn’t see it as a reckless challenge – and that’s the second thing we can debate about. It is what it is. The positive thing for us – we hate to lose, I hate to lose – but if you have to lose, it’s better to lose when there is still a second leg.”

Unsurprisingly, Ange Postecoglou had a completely different take on the decision. Asked if Bergvall was lucky to be on the pitch, an animated Postecoglou told Sky Sports: “Great question! No, he wasn’t. People misinterpreted my comments from the other day. The rule is – and we’ve been told this for quite a while now – if advantage gets played, as long as it’s not a cynical tackle, then a yellow card does not get [shown].

“We’ve been screaming for it for the last two months. It’s happened to us consistently – have a look at our games. We’ve asked the officials and they’ve said, if you play advantage and as long as it’s not a cynical tackle then a yellow card doesn’t get paid. Now, to me, that was pretty clear.”

Liverpool were far from their best and were fortunate that VAR was in place to rule out Solanke’s earlier goal for a tight offside call. Attwell had to announce the decision to the crowd – a new addition which didn’t go down well with Postecoglou – but Slot was left to reflect on the other big decision from the referee.

"I think everyone who stands in front of the camera will tell you that it had a big influence on the game,” he added. “It didn’t feel to me as if we were ever going to lose here. But you never know, in the moment things can change – and this is what we saw. The decision he made had a lot of impact, of course, on the result tonight. There is nothing else I can say about it.”

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