Tottenham Hotspur: Image shows potentially major VAR error is Spurs draw

Tottenham Hotspur may feel aggrieved following Wednesday night’s draw against West Ham United after a contentious VAR decision went against them. 

Antonio Conte’s men were only able to leave the London Stadium with a point despite taking the lead in the first half but seeing their advantage cancelled out by Tomas Soucek.

Before Spurs took the lead through Thilo Kehrer’s own goal, the visitors thought Harry Kane would have the chance to open up the scoring from the spot after a handball against Aaron Cresswell.

Having initially been awarded a penalty by Peter Bankes, an agonisingly long VAR check saw the referee reverse his decision which left Conte furious after the game:

“It is incredible that VAR looked again, called the referee, he can see it was the right decision and the call from VAR was strange. I can tell only that the referee has taken the right decision. Usually the VAR calls when the call is not right,” he said.

An image of the handball incident was shared on Twitter after the Hammers were provided a lifeline by Stuart Attwell from Stockley Park.

TIF Thoughts on the incident…

This is definitely a contentious decision which will likely divide the two fan bases. And we can understand Conte’s frustrations given the ball did hit his arm inside the box.

But it did hit his head first and it seems VAR feels the ball deflecting onto his arm did not make any impact on the ball heading towards the West Ham goal.

However, then you have to look at whether Cresswell had his arm in an unnatural position and looking at the image, you would have to say he has made his body as big as possible to put-off Kane.

Spurs were simply not good enough on the night. They did not deserve to take the points from their London rivals, but big decisions like this have huge ramifications on the game and had it been awarded, the game could have been completely different.