West Ham United’s surprise victory against in-form Newcastle United did not come without its fair share of luck. That is without, for one moment, decrying the Hammers’ high work rate (more of that later today) or the off-day which Newcastle’s Alexander Isak suffered, where he couldn’t seem to hit a barn door with a bazooka.
Fortune was most definitely not hiding on Monday night: The Hammers were again lucky to be on the right end of a strange referee and VAR combination at a crucial time in the second half.
Jean Clair Todibo had departed – he’d been suffering from a stomach problem since the weekend, which excuses his howler which almost let Newcastle back in – and had been replaced for much of the second half by Konstantinos Mavropanos. The Greek instantly got on the wrong side of Newcastle’s replacement striker Callum Wilson and looked for all the world to impede his jump and prevent a goal scoring opportunity.
On another night a penalty plus some kind of card would surely have been forthcoming. ‘New’ VAR decided to side with referee Craig Pawson and decree ‘no penalty’ – the more the incident was replayed, the more obvious the error looked.
The Premier League Statement, via its official Match Centre account, wrote on X “The referee’s call of no penalty for the challenge by Mavropanos on Wilson was checked and confirmed by VAR, deeming that the contact was not sufficient for a penalty.”
In view of the Danny Ings ‘knocked him over with a feather’ VAR-generated penalty against Manchester United, this decision inconsistency is impossible to either predict or defend. Enjoy it whilst it runs in our favour, because these things have a habit of levelling themselves out during a season which means West Ham have some pretty awful VAR injustices coming towards them down the track at some stage.
West Ham have already suffered one such cock-up with the Crysencio Summerville ‘holding back that was only fleeting holding back‘ incident: How are the players, the coaching staff or we as fans supposed to have confidence in the system when there is so much inconsistency. Do away with it.
we shouldn’t have take anything that goes incorrectly against us.we’ve been suffering that (and not just us) against more powerful clubs for decades. whoever got a penalty at Old Trafford all thru the 90s and 2000s when Alex the red-nosed ring leader was there? no one. VAR decision to not give us the goal from Cornet that would have got us points at Chelsea. the list goes on. every once in a while we get one (2 so far this season!) and i for one am not feeling guilty about it. i LOVE it when the big fry cry!
I believe it was a penalty, we got away with one. I’ll take it all the same and Wilson not getting the chance to score against us as he normally does! ☘️⚒️
Get a life
Charming…
You actually spending your own life writing such a pointless and unnecessary comment suggests that it may be you sir, who needs to get a life. Sort yourself out and stop being a d*** to people.
What goes around comes around. Newcastle should never have been awarded a pen last season when Philips was harshly penalised. That one cost the Hammers at least a draw.
It wasn’t a penalty. Not enough contact. Not prolonged. Football is a contact sport. What an easy game it would be for strikers if defenders had to stand off them the whole time.
More of the ridiculous, anti-West Ham bias that has been seen all over the press this season. Pundits cannot see a way to praise a comprehensive win when that see one – especially if it’s by West Ham
The truth is it wasn’t a penalty. Callum Wilson had no chance of reaching the ball, and made the most of a defenders close attention. A very good decision by both the ref and VAR, both of whom recognised that not every contact is a foul.
exactly Mr.57 , he couldn’t even have reach it with a clenched fist punch , as Geoff has highlighted below , however had it been Kalvin Phillips making the challenge then i’m sure newcastle would have got the decision overturned in their favour
whether he could get to it or not is irrelevant – he was fouled off the ball. i don’t care, we’re owed plenty, but that’s a pen every single day
apologies to disagree a little Martin but , with regard to “these things have a habit of levelling themselves out during a season” , this may be the case but although the number of decisions may level themselves out during a season they don’t have a habit of occurring at the same time of importance i.e. get a dodgy call at 2-0 3-0 4-0 down then you get no gain for the decision , get a dodgy call at 0-0 and that’s an extra 2 points ! the ball was sailing over Wilson’s head last night & he feels an arm coming round him & a bit of physical pressure on him and as usual throws himself threw the air like he’s slipped off the trapeze , and many decisions with physical contact & tripping did not go our way when they should have last night , newcastle may have been a bit unfortunate with the result and have deserved something from the game but let’s take our mind back to the same fixture last season and look at the ridiculous decisions that took that game away from us then , if so then perhaps there is some kind of karma at work
you can disagree with me as much as you like – that’s the benefit of the ‘comments’- no need to apologise. We all see it differently and it’d be boring if we all agreed.
I think Callum Wilson has a history of misleading the officials, I remember he handled the ball into the net a few seasons ago, it’s nice to see the weasel get some karma.
A good result last night just hope it’s not a flash in the pan situation with arsenal up next we need to maintain the same level of play to stand a chance of winning if we revert back to how it was before the Newcastle game if that turns out to be the case we will get trashed by arsenal and once again it will be JLs fault and that last night’s game was just a one off to save him from being sacked we saw this time and again with moyes when ever he had to win a game to stay in his job I have a feeling that may well be the case with JL I hope I’m wrong time will tell
Handled and offside as well as I recall… karma indeed…weasel
Yes, thats right John !
Countless dubious VAR decisions have gone against Westham in the past and so if there is a natural balancing process taking place then Westham should benefit from a dubious 50-50 decision in every game for the next 2 or 3 seasons .