Last night West Ham should have been given a penalty just before half-time when Victor Lindelof handled the ball inside his own area from a Said Benrahma cross.
Rio Ferdinand and Joe Cole were on pundit duty for BT Sport and both of them dissected the incident during the half-time break.
“Without a doubt 100% (it was a penalty). He has moved his arm towards the ball, I don’t understand for the life of me why VAR hasn’t looked at it. It killed West Ham against Liverpool and it’s happened again, David Moyes will be furious.”
And then Rio Ferdinand added:
“We all shouted handball immediately. You see his arm, he moves his arm towards the ball. I don’t know how the referee hasn’t been told to go over and have a look at it.”
How on earth that decision wasn’t given last night is absolutely mind-boggling.
It’s not VAR that’s the problem, it’s the inept officials operating it.
It does make you think though, that there is a bias towards the so-called big six teams.. When was the last time we got a big decision given in our favour against one of those sides?
We seem to be reaching a point where barely a game goes by when VAR doesn’t creatgye talking points and problems.
Significantly, there are no former players involved in making these decisions – only those who haven;t played the game at a professional level.
That needs to change if we are to continue with this technological intervention within the game.
Third game in a row the var decision has gone against West Ham wrongly in my opinion. We should be on 39 points now not 37. The pundits were right it was a penalty last night.
More importantly though for me opinion wise was that the former referee they have watching the game on bt sport, Peter Walton, said
“On first reflection, I looked at it and thought the arm was in his body line so he hadn’t made himself bigger,” he told BT Sport at half-time. “When you look at it again, there’s clear movement of the arm towards the ball. That is an offence and should have been given.
“The VAR should have given referee Peter Banks every opportunity to have another look at it. It’s a penalty kick. That (arm movement) is the evidence that is required to give the decision so for me a penalty kick.