Michail Antonio was named man of the match by ClaretandHugh readers on Saturday but nothing removes the pain of defeat for the big fella.
We have rarely seen a more wholehearted player in the claret and blue and once again he was on hand to snatch an equaliser on the stroke of half time which looked for a long time as if it would be the platform for a three-pointer in north London.
Sadly it wasn’t to be despite most accepting the Hammers were the better team or the majority of the 90 minutes.
David Moyes remains convinced that we were also denied a penalty under the new rules but despite a conversation with the referee, the Hammers striker was unprepared to comment on whether Gabriel should have been penalised via the spot in what appeared to be a clear decision.
He admits it was hard to take but said at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/september/21-september/michail-antonio-we-can-build-saturdays-performance: “It’s difficult because I was talking to the referee about it and he said how it hit him on the sleeve.
“With the new rules coming in, it’s difficult to judge where it hits him and where it doesn’t and I was asking him if it hits him on the line of the sleeve, is it handball or is it not handball?
“It’s such a big ball, so it’s difficult to judge. I’m not going to comment if it was a pen or not but it was a hard one to take because we thought we could have got three points, so leaving with nothing was painful.”
Of his equaliser, he added: “Saturday was a great team goal. The ball out from Jarrod to Ryan and from Ryan to find me, I couldn’t miss, so hopefully, I can get a few more in the weeks to come and we can get some more points on the table.”
The ball hit him on the sleeve! So no hand ball, cue long sleeved football shirts anytime soon! The fact the ball changed direction on hitting his “shirt” doesn’t seem to count as handball, unless of course you are a top six team that it affects.