It seems as if the referee may have made a big mistake in the most recent West Ham United game after penalising Ben Johnson for a supposed foul in the box.
In the Europa Conference League, the Hammers hosted Anderlecht and managed to secure qualification for the knockout stage with a 2-1 win at the London Stadium.
Said Benrahma opened the scoring with a fine freekick and Jarrod Bowen doubled his side’s lead before halftime. This was enough to secure the victory despite Sebastiano Esposito’s penalty late on in the game.
However, upon watching footage of the foul that led to the Anderlecht spot kick, it looks as though Johnson clearly won the ball first and he was actually kicked instead of it being the other way around – which is how the referee viewed it.
TIF thoughts on West Ham and the penalty…
Johnson seemed to know that he won the ball and directly after the penalty was given he made the VAR gesture with his hands. Unfortunately, though, as the technology is not being used in the Europa Conference League at this stage of the competition the referee could not review and change his initial decision.
Luckily for West Ham, this incident only happened right at the death and so by the time the Anderlecht goal came, it was already the 89th minute. This meant that there was hardly any time for the away team to seek out an equaliser.
Even so, it did cost West Ham a clean sheet and had the Belgian club managed to pull off a shock and grab another goal this dubious penalty certainly would have been remembered as a hugely controversial moment.