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.
