The referee and VAR may have made a huge mistake in the West Ham United game when they failed to send off Jefferson Lerma for a bad challenge on Gianluca Scamacca.
In their most recent Premier League outing, the Hammers hosted Bournemouth and managed to claim an important 2-0 win in front of their own fans.
However, the game did not pass without controversy. Not only were there question marks over a handball in the build-up to the opening goal from Kurt Zouma, but more followed when West Ham were handed a late penalty – which was scored by Said Benrahma.
Still, for all the doubt about those incidents, the Cherries were pretty fortunate not to lose a man. Indeed, Lerma came in with a knee-level slide tackle as he tried to win the ball off Scamacca.
The image below shows just how high his foot was, with his studs showing, as he made the challenge and the Bournemouth midfielder was certainly lucky to avoid a red card.
TIF thoughts on the incident and West Ham…
While Lerma caught Scamacca, the Italian rode the challenge without going to ground and so this is probably why the referee did not deem it bad enough to warrant a red card in the moment.
Even so, VAR has the benefit of review and it seems odd that they would see such a reckless challenge and allow it to go unpunished. Had the Bournemouth man been sent off, the Hammers likely would have had a much easier second half.
Indeed, the midfielder clearly has both feet off the ground and is clearly out of control with both studs air born, so you have to say there is some very dangerous intent there. Interestingly, Luke Ayling was sent off for a red card challenge against Arsenal which was rather similar, with him leaving his feet with both studs, though there was slightly more contact on that occasion.
In the end, though, David Moyes’ men managed to cling on for the win, and sealed the three points with that aforementioned 92nd-minute penalty thanks to Benrahma.
Had the Cherries claimed an equaliser before then, however, this incident would have been stirring real controversy in the media today.