The Premier league’s official ‘X’ account burst into life to justify their officials’ decision to award Brighton and Hove Albion’s late equaliser, despite a clear and obvious hand ball by the eventual goal scorer which denied the Hammers their much deserved three points in the winter downpour at the Amex.
Their written justification on twitter read:
“The referee’s call of goal was checked and confirmed by VAR – with it deemed that Rutter’s arm was in a natural position and he did not deliberately handle the ball, and the contact with the arm was not immediately prior to him scoring.”
As far as the Hammers head coach was concerned, it was an open and shut case of the wrong decision being made:
It’s a handball isn’t it!” Espirito Santo exclaimed live on Sky Sports, understandably finding it difficult to keep his anger and frustration in check.
“We missed a couple of chances that we had, clear ones. It was a good game. I think the first half was good. We created problems. We contained them. Areola didn’t have that much to do. We score, we try to close the game, and unfortunately we could not.”
The reality is that Nuno’s team selection surprised everybody, as did his five at the back defensive set up. But remember this: Had it not have been for the VAR fiasco, he’d have won a rare away victory and in any case has 2 draws, one loss and two wins in his last five games. It isn’t Nuno’s form which is responsible for West Ham being in the bottom three.
The truth is that Graham Potter’s pathetic coaching cock – ups, cave-ins and capitulations are what got us into big trouble at the foot of the league: Nuno’s ability to get the best out of some very ordinary players – yes including Guido Rodriguez today ) much as it pains me to admit it) will – with a little more luck than was on hand today – be enough to prove West Ham’s salvation. That and about fifty million quid well spent in January.
Keep the faith..
Guess Summerville will improve his finishing with a bit of time and coaching. That’ll help.
Agree with all the comments, just to add if NES plays defensively, need to try and stop all those crosses and corners – not easy, but need to push them back more when being defensive.
Wanted to say that feel, can really get behind this team and NES is getting a lot out of these players – it’s a good team now (with a few gaps as everyone say). He is playing quite a few youngsters and they all seem technically very good, great spirit and they play as a team and look to go forward. Perhaps this will have an effect on how the team plays and I wonder if with time, as youngsters influence more & team melds even more we might not see more spirited attacking play, which we catch glimpses of only. Some passages of play on Sunday were great to watch, skillful, quick; I bet Brighton were surprised to see this was no walkover.
COYI!
Totally agree Martin, whilst it’s not pretty Nuno is not responsible for the position we are in it is all of Potter and sulivans making. At least this guy changes things if need be. He has given more of the youth team a chance than all of the last 3 managers put together.
We will get dodgy periods as the next few upcoming games look challenging to say the least but we will stay up for sure
I like Nuno as a manager but I wish he wouldn’t make defensive substitutions late on to try and hold on to a one goal lead. As we all can see, it invites more pressure and it never works for us. The opposition has no need to worry about defending and so throw everyone forward to batter us into conceding. Please, Nuno, no more parking the bus when leading by just a single goal. That’s cost us 4 points in the Bournemouth and Brighton games. We need more 3 pointers, not 1 pointers.
Yes his arm moved away from his body to the ball so how could it be deemed accidental? People in the VAR room were swayed by Matt Upsons commentary when he deemed it accidental. However referee should have stopped game and awarded us a free kick for Matt Upton being kicked in the head by a high boot when he was off the ground.
Finally Westham have a competent coach in Nuno . He;s made mistakes but seems to be learning from them and there is definitely an incremental improvement in team performance from match to match . Westham are now playing like a team instead of 11 individuals , the trouble is that this season there’s only one bad team ( Wolves ) and every other team is already a few points in front of Westham and looking decent . Westham need some unexpected big wins before the new year or else they’ll be too far behind to survive .
A great effort from the whole team today. But alas we are not making enough chances or converting enough. This season has the makings of being a repeat of 2003 where we went down with 42 points.
We need to be very smart with incoming transfers in the window. I read a lot of articles about us recruiting a goalkeeper, centre half etc when the only thing we should be focusing on is two players who can give us more goal threat
No way was that an accidental handball. He had lost control of the ball and regained it by using his arm
There are some decent signs that we can get out of this mess. The threat of relegation will test our ability to sign players in January, so picking up points over a difficult Christmas period will be vital.
There are a few truths it exposed. As with Soucek not going down for a penalty against Utd, Mavropanos could and should have gone to ground highlighting the dangerous high boot. The other truth is that Nuno insists on giving up momentum when he has it and that invites pressure which is a cause of these problems holding onto a lead. If you have momentum you should never ever give it up, end of, Nuno needs to find a different way of closing games out because this is a problem for us.
I commend him and the team picking up the form and restoring pride and ask him to improve his approach which is consistently losing us leads.
Any Premier League team 1-0 down with 10/15 minutes to go will throw caution to the wind and push you back. It has got nothing to do with Nuno instructing the team to drop back.
Four of his substitutions yesterday were like for like position wise and the other was Soucek for an exhausted Paqueta which, at the time, gave additional aerial strength against Brighton’s late desperate assault.
I agree any team a goal down will put pressure on, good teams hold the line and we do the opposite, that’s Nuno’s as it was Moyes tactic, we went from 343 to 91 formation we were literally lined up with every player bar the keeper and Wilson in a line a few times yesterday. Sometimes now we run the ball upfield which is an improvement but often we just hoof it forward. The solution is to stick to the already highly defensive set up and counter at pace or be really brave take a defender off and go 4 3 3 which he could have done keeping Fernandes on, Magassa can drop back into cb as he did in the Utd game and we have more press resistance in the team to retain the ball when we win it back.
I like that Nuno has given the players discipline but inviting pressure as he does particularly early after going into the lead isn’t a recipe for 3 points, Bournemouth could have beaten us so could Brighton when before that they hadn’t had a shot on target.
Play the game they don’t want you too, not the one that empowers them.
Nuno is doing a great job
Completely agree. Nuno is doing a great job, even though he has little in the bench to help us win games. Once he gets some of his own players we’ll get better. He’s the right man for the job, and the only one to get something out of these players. We’ve been very unlucky.
Keep up the good work Nuno lot of people slag you off when the team was announced especially those on WHTID. We will stay up
I don’t agree, I thought Rodriguez was rubbish. I can’t believe he gets in the squad, I’m praying he goes in January.
I’m assuming then that you didn’t actually watch the game yesterday.
I would put your “Fifty million quid” in the extremely conservative bracket and that assuming we are only looking at 2 players incoming. In reality, the level of player we need in both striker and defensive positions is likely to have at least some pedigree and therefore will be in excess of £30m each. If we are budget constrained again and looking at gambling on the club’s survival, then £50m might cover 2 unknowns at market prices.
Not convinced by the handball, if no goal had been scored no way it would have been given as arm close to body.
That’s only given as a handball if in the immediate act of scoring a goal, but it wasn’t.
“It is an offence if a player scores in the opponents goal directly from their hand/arm, even if accidental. It is also an offence if a player scores immediately after the ball has touched their hand/arm, even if accidental.”
The key word being immediately so the rule was properly applied.
We didn’t win because we weren’t clinical with what were good chances, far better chances than Brighton had. Bowens goal was from far from our best chance.