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Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou says midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur is an "outstanding person" who made a "mistake" with the racial slur made against team-mate Son Heung-min.

The Uruguay international, 27, was banned for seven matches by the Football Association earlier this week, following the comments he made while appearing on Uruguayan television in June.

Spurs have appealed against the ban, saying they accept the guilty finding but not the severity of the punishment.

"I fully support the club's decision to appeal the severity of the ban," Postecoglou told Sky Sports, external.

"I spoke to him in the lead-up [to the FA's decision] and as I said he understands he's made a mistake and he's prepared to accept whatever penalty comes his way.

"We as a club are going to support him because the one thing that's undeniable to me - because I know him - is that he's an outstanding person, an unbelievable team-mate and a person of the utmost character that's made a mistake."

Tottenham have appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur's seven-game domestic ban for a racist slur made about team-mate Son Heung-min, saying the Football Association punishment is "severe".

Spurs say they accept the guilty finding by an independent regulatory commission, which also fined the player £100,000 and ordered him to take part in a mandatory face-to-face education programme.

It came after he was charged by the FA in September for comments made while appearing on TV in his home country of Uruguay in June.

Bentancur, who denied the charge, is currently suspended from domestic matches until 26 December.

He will miss Premier League matches against Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea among others, plus Spurs' League Cup quarter-final against Manchester United, but is available for Spur's Europa League matches.

The Uruguay midfielder will remain suspended domestically while the appeal is heard.

When charging the Uruguay international the FA said it was "an alleged breach of FA rule E3 for misconduct in relation to a media interview".

The FA said this constituted an "aggravated breach as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to nationality and/or race and/or ethnic origin".

The commission said such a breach "requires an immediate suspension of 6-12 matches".

In the media interview in question, asked by a presenter for a Tottenham shirt, Bentancur replied: "Sonny's? It could be Sonny's cousin too as they all look the same."

He later apologised on social media and said his comments were a "very bad joke".

Bentancur also said sorry to South Korea forward Son, who said he would "not mean to ever intentionally say something offensive".

Spurs said in a statement: "We can confirm that the club has appealed against the length of Rodrigo Bentancur's FA suspension, issued earlier this week.

"While we accept the guilty finding against Rodrigo by the independent regulatory commission, we believe the subsequent sanction is severe."

A response to the charge sent by Tottenham on behalf of Bentancur said: "Rodrigo's reply was sarcastic and a gentle rebuke for the journalist calling Sonny 'the Korean'".

"Rodrigo does not believe that all Koreans 'look more or less the same'. The context of the exchange clearly shows Rodrigo is being sarcastic. Rodrigo was challenging the journalist in his description of his club team-mate."

It was also submitted that Bentancur's apology for his comments was "not for what he said, but for the inadequate reporting on the interview which excluded" the presenter's reference to Son as "the Korean".

However, the panel concluded Bentancur's "conduct in using the words he did, in the full context in which they were used, was clearly abusive and insulting, and would amount to misconduct".

They found that the apologies made by him appear to show he accepted he had caused offence and a statement from Spurs, external in response to his apologies, "appears to have accepted that the player's remarks had been objectively insulting and/or abusive and discriminatory".

The panel said they could not accept the submission of Bentancur as it "flies in the face of the evidence" and "does not sit with the content or form of the player’s apologies or the response of THFC or Son Heung-min".

In determining the sanction, the independent regulatory commission took into account Bentancur had no previous offences, did not mean to cause offence and, "despite the submissions made on his behalf before us which tended to undermine the force of that early apology, we consider his remorse was and is genuine".

It added: "In all the circumstances, we consider that, in terms of culpability and consequences, this breach falls towards the lower end of the guideline range but not the lowest point."

The seven-game ban given to Tottenham's Rodrigo Bentancur for a racial slur about team-mate Son Heung-min has restarted the conversation about racism towards players and fans of East and South East Asian descent.

Anti-racism charity Kick It Out (KIO) says there has been a rise in both incidents of racism towards East and South East Asian players - and reports of those incidents, highlighted in these statistics:

There were 395 reports of "player-targeted" racist abuse in stadiums and online to KIO in the 2023-24 season - up from 277 in 2022-23.

Of the 937 player-specific abuse reports to KIO in the past five full seasons, 327 of them (35%) have been directed at just seven East and South East Asian players.

Kick It Out chief executive Samuel Okafor said: "We are getting a lot of reports about this type of racism.

"It’s fans sending us a clear message they are not willing to tolerate discrimination and it’s a message that football needs to listen to."

The players who have being targeted regularly over the past five seasons have not been named by Kick It Out.

The most high profile East or South East Asian players in the Premier League are Spurs' Son and Hwang Hee-Chan from South Korea, and the Japanese quartet of Brighton winger Kauro Mitoma, Arsenal's Takehiro Tomiyasu, Crystal Palace's Daichi Kamada and Southampton's Yukinari Sugawara.

In October, Como's Marco Curto was given a 10-match ban by Fifa, five suspended, for racially abusing Wolves forward Hwang in a pre-season friendly in July.

Son has been racially abused multiple times since coming to the Premier League in 2015, with the most recent case seeing a Nottingham Forest supporter banned from every ground in the country.

Similar publicised incidents have occurred involving Son among the fan bases for Manchester United, Chelsea, Crystal Palace and West Ham between 2019 and 2023.

Show Racism the Red Card also called out viral social media posts linking Asian players to the coronavirus outbreak in 2020.

Tottenham have declined to comment any further on the ban after Bentancur was punished on Monday afternoon.

Spurs defender Ben Davies, speaking while on international duty with Wales, said: "I think that as a group, as a team at Tottenham, we’ve all put a line under it and moved on.

"But, ultimately, it's important that we realise that these kind of things need to be looked at with the seriousness that it has been."

Manager Ange Postecoglou will speak to the media on Friday and previously said his midfielder made a "big error" and that "he has got to take the punishment".

"To be brutally honest, we run into these kind of things every week," says London-based Premier League video content creator Kevin Yuan.

It's not only the high profile players facing racist abuse - fans have told BBC Sport about their experiences following football.

Yuan was racially abused alongside a female colleague outside Wembley Stadium by Real Madrid supporters after the Champions League final in June.

Yuan creates football content for the Chinese media market and was filming with celebrating Madrid fans who were - unknown to him - singing a racially offensive chant in Spanish about Chinese women, aimed at his colleague.

"I asked one fan what did that chant mean? And he said, that's it's a Real Madrid chant, that we are champions," he said.

"The next day we were told by our friends in Spain that this was actually a very racist song. We found it incredibly offensive."

Yuan revealed he has faced similar incidents filming at English clubs.

"It feels like part of our jobs [to take the abuse]," he said. "We film at different stadiums before and after the game and it seems to happen literally every week.

"I don't know if it is because of the way I look or speak.

"I am in a chat group with Chinese supporters of Manchester United and we have a saying that you will be extremely lucky to avoid a racist incident at least once during a season.

"It happens no matter which team you support. I came to the UK in 2008 and have been going to games since then - but I feel like a foreigner, like I don't fit in. I would hope people can understand how unsettling it is and put themselves in my shoes."

Maxwell Min, the projects co-ordinator for the Frank Soo Foundation, which celebrates the life of the first non-white player to play for England in 1945, explains why he thinks there is a tension.

"It's easy to conclude that East and South East Asians don't play football - but there is a missing link that they are often playing at levels unaffiliated to the county FA system so it is easy to ignore them," he said.

"There may be a simple fact that it is only in recent years that East and South East Asians have begun playing in our stadiums at the highest level, through Japanese and Korean players.

"There are also new fans in the stadium and there is this assumption that these fans have a more shallow interest in the sport; that it is not as deep as the so-called local or usual ethnic groups that are seen, often seeing them characterised as 'tourists'.

Min added: "I've had negative incidents myself but the love of football has put me in the position where I am working in the game in this role.

"When I was a kid, I thought Manchester United's Ji Sung Park was the best an Asian player could be. But seeing Son win the Golden Boot and be on course to become a legend for Tottenham has increased my dreams and positive expectations for the future."

Tottenham midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur has been given a seven-match domestic ban by the Football Association for using a racial slur about team-mate Son Heung-min.

Bentancur, who has also been fined £100,000, was charged by the FA in September after comments made while appearing on TV in his home country of Uruguay in June.

"Rodrigo Bentancur denied this charge, but the independent regulatory commission found it to be proven and imposed his sanctions following a hearing," said an FA statement.

The 27-year-old will not return to domestic action until 26 December, missing Premier League matches against Manchester City, Liverpool and Chelsea, among others, plus Spurs' League Cup quarter-final against Manchester United.

He will still be available for Tottenham's Europa League matches.

When charging the Uruguay international the FA said it was "an alleged breach of FA rule E3 for misconduct in relation to a media interview".

The FA said this constituted an "aggravated breach... as it included a reference, whether express or implied, to nationality and/or race and/or ethnic origin".

Bentancur apologised to Son, who said he would "not mean to ever intentionally say something offensive".

In the media interview in question, asked by a presenter for a Tottenham shirt, Bentancur replied: "Sonny's? It could be Sonny's cousin too as they all look the same."

He later apologised on social media and said his comments were a "very bad joke".

Bentancur has played 15 times for Tottenham this season and scored his first goal of the campaign in a defeat by Ipswich on 11 November.

The incident involving Bentancur happened in his own time and so, as he plays in England, fell under the jurisdiction of the FA - unlike the situation involving Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez.

The calls for Renee Slegers to be appointed permanent Arsenal manager could soon reach a crescendo after yet another impressive win in interim charge, this time a 3-0 victory at Tottenham in the north London derby.

The Gunners have won five out of six games under the former Netherlands midfielder, scoring 19 goals and conceding just two.

That run includes impressive wins against Valerenga and Juventus in the Women's Champions League, before Saturday stroll at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the Women's Super League (WSL).

"It is something the club must look at, giving her the manager role [permanently]," former Arsenal midfielder Fara Williams told BBC Sport.

"That is not to say that they need to rush into it. While she is getting the results and performances there is no need to make a decision just yet."

The celebrations by the Arsenal fans nestled in one corner of the stadium were in sharp contrast to the start of last month, when supporters jeered manager Jonas Eidevall and called for his dismissal following a 2-1 home defeat by Chelsea.

Slegers, who joined Arsenal as Eidevall's assistant in September 2023, was installed as interim manager to give the club time to decide on a replacement.

"It's a different energy. Renee knows us all," Arsenal captain Leah Williamson told BBC Sport. "She has connected with everyone individually. We got into a bit of a rut with low confidence and she has just stripped it back and wants the best out of every player. It’s working."

Forward Alessia Russo, who opened the scoring against Spurs after just 63 seconds, said: "We are a little bit more confident. Things don't change overnight.

"She has allowed us a little bit of freedom up there and we are really enjoying it. Each game is getting better and better and we are getting some big results."

Arsenal continued their resurgence under interim boss Renee Slegers with a comfortable win at Tottenham in the north London derby.

The in-form Gunners have now won five and drawn one in all competitions since the Dutchwoman took charge following Jonas Eidevall's resignation last month.

They made a made a perfect start at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when Alessia Russo fired into the corner after just 63 seconds for her fifth goal of the season.

Frida Maanum then capitalised on more slack defending from the hosts in the 22nd minute to drill home Arsenal's second from inside the area.

Substitute Stina Blackstenius finished off a lovely flowing move to make it 3-0 midway through the second half.

Despite the win Arsenal stay in fourth place, one point behind Brighton after the Seagulls beat West Ham 3-2 in Saturday's early game.

Tottenham remain seventh and just four points off the bottom two after a fifth defeat in six games, conceding at least three goals in each of them.

Spurs went into the game having won their last three matches at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, including a 1-0 victory in the north London derby last season.

But they never looked like making it four in a row after yet another awful start.

Having conceded after just 24 seconds against Manchester City last weekend, Spurs could only hold on for 39 more this time as forward Russo was left totally unmarked to volley across goal and into the bottom corner.

Maanum then had the freedom of north London to control Kim Little's pass just inside the area and stroke the ball beyond Rebecca Spencer to put the visitors in control.

Robert Vilahamn's side have now conceded a league-high 21 goals in their eight WSL matches this season, with no team letting in more in the opening 15 minutes.

They belatedly fought their way back into the game as the half progressed and came close to a reply when Beth England's stinging drive from distance was tipped over by Daphne van Domselaar.

Leah Williamson, making her 150th WSL appearance for Arsenal, then did well to head clear a searching free-kick with England lurking at the far post.

Tottenham switched to a back five at half-time to try to tighten up defensively, but they were completely opened up again for Arsenal's third goal.

Mariona Caldentey's brilliant first-time pass sent Blackstenius clean through and the Sweden forward calmly finished low past Spencer.

Interim boss Slegers has been coy over suggestions she could take the job on a permanent basis, but she is doing her chances no harm with each game.

For Tottenham there is some mitigation for their poor form, with their five recent defeats all against last season's WSL top five.

Vilahamn will hope forthcoming games against the current bottom three will allow them to restore some confidence and halt that poor run.

BBC Sport's chief football writer Phil McNulty has been answering your questions.

Daz asked: What do you make of Tottenham's indifferent form? We can beat the likes of Manchester City and Aston Villa and yet lose poorly to Crystal Palace and Ipswich, plus the Brighton capitulation.

I hope Ange Postecoglou is successful but is he out of his depth in the Premier League, or is it a deeper issue at Spurs given we have also not achieved anything with the likes of Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte?

Phil answered: Where do you even start when trying to make sense of Spurs? So impressive in beating Manchester City and Aston Villa and yet so poor on so many other occasions, latterly losing at home to Ipswich Town, who had not won a Premier League game before Sunday.

I do not think Postecoglou is out of his depth in the Premier League but, as he readily acknowledged, there is a maddening inconsistency about Spurs that is his job to resolve.

It is also down to the players as well. If they reach certain standards they need to maintain them.

They cannot be perfect every week but, on the other hand, their attitude must be questioned if there can be such a remarkable drop-off from game to game.

The good Spurs could fulfil Postecoglou's claim that he always wins a trophy in his second season. The bad Spurs can, as we have seen, lose to anyone.

Postecoglou must come up with the answers or, as he again readily admits, he will take responsibility for it.

Ed Sheeran was just learning how to play a guitar when Ipswich Town beat Middlesbrough in the Premier League in April 2002.

Over the next two decades Sheeran used that guitar to become a global music star while the former Uefa Cup winners slipped into the third tier of English football.

But in north London on Sunday, Sheeran was in the crowd to see his local team finally end their 22-year wait for a top-flight win.

After first-half goals by Sam Szmodics and Liam Delap, Sheeran watched the Tractor Boys hold on to beat Tottenham for their first win of the season.

What made the victory even sweeter was that Ipswich were wearing their pink third kit, which was designed in collaboration with Sheeran, for the first time.

The 33-year-old then capped a dream day by joining Kieran McKenna's players to celebrate.

While languishing in League One, Sheeran and many other Ipswich fans must have wondered whether they would ever see their team play in the Premier League again.

But Sheeran became the club's main shirt sponsor in 2021 and after Ipswich earned back-to-back promotions to seal their return to the top flight, he bought a minority stake in the club this summer.

The singer-songwriter even helped serve pies at their opening game of the season at home to Liverpool, so it seems fitting that he was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

He was only smiling after Szmodics' overhead kick put Ipswich in front. After all, they had taken the lead in five of their previous 10 league games this season and failed to clinch victory.

He could barely contain his excitement when Liam Delap bundled in Ipswich's second goal, and this time the Tractor Boys held on to climb out of the relegation zone.

Asked about Sheeran after the game, Szmodics said: "Is he here? Well, we'll try to get him in the changing room!"

Shortly after, manager McKenna told Match of the Day that he had "popped in".

"We were wearing the third kit, the one he had a part in designing, so that was nice," he said. "Maybe he brought us some good luck.

"He congratulated the boys, and everyone knows he's been an important part of the club in the last few years with the support he gives us, so it was nice for him to be here."

Sheeran spared McKenna's blushes by leaving his guitar at home though. It was probably for the best because the Ipswich boss admits he's "not very good" at karaoke.

"There were no sing-songs, but the players are delighted," said McKenna. "They know this is a win to cherish, but they also know where we want to get to as a club - winning games in the Premier League - and we know this season that's going to be a challenge.

"It's been a big journey to get to this point."

After failing to earn a swift return to the Premier League following relegation in 2002, Ipswich reached the Championship play-offs just once after 2005 and were relegated to League One in 2019.

"It's a really significant moment and a day to cherish in the recent history of the club," McKenna said.

"You look at the journey the club has been on in the past 22 years, the ups and downs, some heights but some depths as well.

"For the supporters to see their club win in the Premier League at a fantastic club like Tottenham, in a stadium like this against a team like that, it is a massive day for them."

Ipswich failed to make the play-offs in their first two seasons in League One and were 12th in December 2021, when McKenna was named as Paul Cook's successor.

In his first full season the Tractor Boys were promoted as runners-up and they repeated the feat in the Championship last season.

"For us who have been involved in the journey for the past couple of years, it's a really significant day as well," McKenna added.

"Everyone's delighted but I know that pretty quickly we'll all move on to the next thing."

Tottenham head coach Ange Postecoglou says their inconsistent start to the season is down to him rather than his players.

Spurs were beaten 2-1 by Ipswich on Sunday to lose for the fifth time in 11 Premier League games this season, leaving them 10th and 12 points off leaders Liverpool.

They have progressed to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals but lost to Galatasaray in the Europa League on Thursday, having won their opening three matches in the competition.

Tottenham's longest winning run in the league this season is two matches, and five across all competitions.

When asked about the reasons for their inconsistency, Postecoglou told BBC Sport: "It's just down to me. I’m not getting consistent performances from the players.

"It's something I need to address. I'm the person in charge so that's usually the way it goes.

"I take responsibility when their performances don't meet the levels that they should."

Asked by Sky Sports if it was a new feeling, he said: "No, I think it's been our season so far. It's been really inconsistent."

Ange Postecoglou spoke to BBC Sport after Tottenham's defeat against Ipswich: "Hugely disappointing. We started slow and passively. We gave ourselves a mountain to climb. Second half we had chances but didn’t do enough to win the game.

"It's just down to me. I’m not getting consistent performances from the players. It’s something I need to address. I’m the person in charge so that’s usually the way it goes. I take responsibility.

"We can’t give ourselves those kind of mountains to climb."