Once again VAR made an unwelcome appearance , and once again VAR makes a wrong decision.
And David Moyes believes that West Ham have been on the wrong end of far too many of them.He is not wrong.
Having been denied penalties for handballs against Liverpool and Manchester United in recent weeks, the Hammers had a goal contentiously ruled out in their 2-0 defeat at Brentford.
After a lethargic first hour or so, the introduction of Declan Rice, Saïd Benrahma and Divin Mubama brought an uptick, and arguably there may have been a nervy finish as a result when Danny Ings stooped to head home the eventually disallowed goal.
Referee Michael Oliver, though, was invited to consult the VAR screen and found that while substitute striker Divan Mubama’s hands were up to prevent him colliding with the post, Oliver determined the ball had hit his fingers.
But the official then went to the pitch side monitor and ruled that Mubama had handled the ball.
“Very strange,” said Hammers boss Moyes. “The Premier League have come out and called it deliberate handball. I think we need a bit of explanation on that.
“The first thing I would say about it is it is inconclusive. If anything I think it hits his shoulder, right on his collarbone.
“If it’s a handball that leads to a goal we all know that rule, but I certainly don’t see deliberate. If anything he might be protecting himself from going into the post. I’m amazed it was chalked off.
“But, let’s be fair, if this was the first one we were talking about in recent games I would say it can happen, but we’re now talking about three of these.
“It’s getting regular. It really is. I don’t want to get in trouble but we’ve had three real ones that could have altered things, and if you said we’ve had our fair share, I’m saying I don’t think we have.”
Moyes’ priorities clearly lie elsewhere despite not being mathematically safe from relegation, with the Hammers boss making nine changes to his side ahead of Thursday night’s Europa Conference League semi-final second leg against AZ Alkmaar.
However, if Moyes was hoping to be given some selection dilemmas for the trip to the Netherlands, he was left sorely disappointed.
The Brentford striker Mbeumo pounced after a mistake by Nayef Aguerd and Wissa headed the second goal after West Ham failed to deal with Mathias Jensen’s long throw.
“I didn’t enjoy the performance. I thought we were soft, easy to play against. It was so poor,” added Moyes.
“We did some work on defending long throws, but you wouldn’t have thought it watching that today. I’m so disappointed the players didn’t deal with it.”