West Ham United should have been playing against 10 men on Sunday afternoon following the penalty decision by VAR.
This has been suggested by the Sky Sports News pundit Stephen Warnock, who has been debating the weekend’s refereeing decisions on the latest edition of Ref Watch.
Steve Cooper’s men got off the mark in the Premier League in their first home game of the season as they prevailed in a narrow 1-0 victory against West Ham United.
However, the game was wrapped up in controversy, with the Hammers seeing a goal disallowed in the first half for a foul from Michail Antonio.
But Warnock was left furious by VAR’s decision not to send off Scott McKenna for his handball which was deemed worthy of a penalty kick by Michael Salisbury who was operating from Stockley Park:
Warnock said on Sky Sports (via Nottingham Forest News): “No, I don’t agree with that. If you dive in the box to prevent a possible goal, it should be a red card. There’s absolutely no guarantee that Henderson makes that save.”
TIF Thoughts on Warnock’s comments…
We have to agree with Warnock. We find it puzzling how a player can deliberately handle the ball inside the box and only be shown a yellow card.
Should this have been a straight red card?
Yes
No
McKenna was looking to prevent what was a clear goalscoring opportunity for the Hammers.
The Forest defender was not to know whether Dean Henderson would have saved the shot, therefore, his intention was to prevent Tomas Soucek from levelling the scoreline, so we fail to understand how the goalkeeper’s position is relevant in this scenario.