Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has been sharing his thoughts on the retaken penalty during West Ham United’s recent 2-1 win over Leeds United.
In the early minutes of the clash at Elland Road, Leeds were awarded a penalty after Hammers goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski took down Patrick Bamford in the penalty box.
Fabianski saved the first attempt from Leeds midfielder Mateusz Klich, but after VAR saw that the Hammers shot-stopper was fractionally off his goalline when the penalty was taken, the penalty had to be taken again, which Klich then scored.
After the match, Moyes said that the decision to award the retake was “rubbish”.
Speaking exclusively to This Is Futbol, Halsey had this to say on the incident and Moyes’ reaction to it.
He said: “I think David’s been unhappy from the week before with the ball out of play against Man United, we could clearly see that was out of play.
“They can tell a goalkeeper is minutely off his line, but they can’t tell when the ball is two yards out of play.
“Knowing him as I do, I think he’s referring also to the standard of officiating.
“I think there has to [be] that little bit of latitude, because the goalkeeper’s first movement is to move forward to get that dive in, so I think there has to be a little leeway.
“I know it is difficult, I know it’s upsetting, I know they get frustrated with it.
“The thing that worried me was the length of time it took from giving the penalty, saving it and then having it retaken because you don’t need to have [that] many replays – you could see on the first replay that he’s just fractionally off his line.”
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As Halsey mentioned, Moyes was potentially previously irked by the refereeing officials during West Ham’s defeat to Manchester United earlier this month when making his comments after they failed to spot that the ball had gone out of play in the build-up to Paul Pogba’s equaliser in the 3-1 defeat.
However, given how West Ham managed to win the game against Leeds, this penalty decision probably isn’t as damaging to the east London club as it could have been.
Also, with this win against Leeds leaving West Ham into 6th place in the Premier League table by the weekend, this is another reason for Moyes and the club to be happy instead of worrying too much about the penalty decision.