West Ham United manager David Moyes has said he felt disrespected by VAR after not being given a late penalty during the 2-1 defeat to Liverpool on Wednesday night.
The Hammers had gone 1-0 up in the game thanks to Lucas Paqueta’s early strike, cancelled out within minutes by Cody Gakpo before Joel Matip sealed a win with a second half header.
However, West Ham thought they should have had a penalty late on when Danny Ings’ run was blocked by a lunge from Liverpool midfielder Thiago, who blocked the ball with his hand and it touched his hand three times in the move.
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However, referee Chris Kavanagh opted not to stop the game to look at it and he was not referred to his pitchside monitor by VAR official Neil Swarbrick.
Speaking on the refused penalty, Moyes said that the lunge means that his side should have had a penalty and felt VAR disrespected his players, adding that he felt the officials in VAR did not have enough football knowledge to overturn the decision.
"I have had a chance to see it since," said Moyes. "You’ll probably hear them coming out with some rubbish about he needed to break his fall but if you lunge it’s your own fault for lunging and being out of control in the tackle.
"You can break your fall by sliding and having to put your arm down but when you lunge for the ball, for me, that completely nullifies anything they’re talking about breaking your fall.
"I think it’s a penalty kick. I think the hardest thing to take is the disrespect from VAR, that VAR wouldn’t have at least said to the referee that this might be worth having a look. That tells me they don’t see that as even close to a decision. I’m surprised.
"Somebody in VAR didn’t have enough football knowledge to understand that this could be close.
"Whoever it was chose not to send the referee. VAR, for me, showed no respect to me whatsoever to us."
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