West Ham United: Dan Lawless shocked over goals controversy this weekend

Presenter Dan Lawless has slammed the idea that West Ham United were lucky to be awarded a couple of their goals in their recent win.

The Hammers claimed all three points in the Premier League over the weekend as they swept Fulham aside 3-1 thanks to goals from Jarrod Bowen, Gianluca Scamacca and Michail Antonio.

However, the game wasn’t without controversy. Indeed, Bowen’s goal came from a penalty, while the ball seemed to hit Scamacca’s hand before he scored.

While speaking about the goals, West Ham Fan TV man Lawless took to Twitter to say he was shocked that fans felt they were lucky to see the calls go their way – which was backed up by the replies to his post.

He wrote: “Can’t believe some West Ham fans are saying Scamacca’s goal shouldn’t have stood and we shouldn’t have had a pen.

“It was a stonewall penalty, and [the] ball stopped just short of Scamacca’s arm which was against his body. We were easily the better team overall.”

TIF Thoughts on the goals and West Ham…

With regard to the penalty, one fan claimed in response to Lawless that Craig Dawson had perhaps run into his man to draw the foul. Meanwhile, another felt that Scamacca’s goal should not have stood, arguing ‘it hit his hand 100%’.

Fulham manager Marco Silva seemed particularly annoyed about the issues after the game, telling the BBC that even the third West Ham goal involved another handball from Antonio in the build-up.

In full, he said: “I will not speak about the referee, sorry, because they will probably come after me and I’ll be off the bench or pay a fine. I am not here for that, I am here to manage my players.

“I will not say to you what I think. Can I ask you what you think? Even for the third goal, there was a handball about five seconds before. Congratulations to West Ham, they got the three points.”

It was a day full of controversy, but it is a game of opinions after all, and Lawless seems pretty certain that his team deserved the win and that the major refereeing calls were all correct.

We can see why West Ham could be considered lucky given the similar incidents this weekend that went the other way such as Marcus Rashford’s disallowed goal at Everton, but they won’t be the last team to get the rub of the green this season.