The referee may have made a mistake in West Ham United’s recent defeat as he opted not to give Gianluca Scamacca a second yellow for a poor challenge.
Over the weekend, the Hammers travelled away from home to face Manchester United in the Premier League but were unable to pick up any points on the road.
Indeed, a single goal from Marcus Rashford was enough to see the Red Devils win the game 1-0 and send David Moyes’ men back to east London with nothing to show for their efforts.
While it was a tight game and West Ham pushed for an equaliser right up until the final whistle, it could have been made more difficult for the Irons had referee Chris Kavanagh sent Scamacca off.
Having already been on a yellow card, the striker made an attempt to volley the ball at goal, leaping into the air and accidentally kicking Lisandro Martinez in the head.
TIF Thoughts on Gianluca Scamacca and West Ham…
VAR can only intervene in a decision such as this if they believe the tackle was bad enough to deserve a straight red card – which it probably wasn’t – and so, seeing as the referee deemed it was not bad enough for a second yellow in real-time, they had to stick with the original decision.
It seems likely that if Kavanagh had another chance to review the incident, he may well have viewed it as a bookable offence. Luckily for Scamacca, though, the referee was feeling generous at that moment and the Italian got away with his rather shocking attempt at playing the ball.
In terms of the final result, however, it didn’t change much for the Hammers as they failed to break down the Man United defence and fell to defeat regardless of this big call going in their favour.