Footage has emerged of an incident that VAR appeared to ignore of a potential foul from Craig Dawson before they were awarded a penalty.
West Ham have now won back-to-back league games and five out of their last six across all competitions which has seen the Hammers shoot up the table and now sit outside of the top 10 on goal difference which will please David Moyes, especially after reports suggested he was under pressure.
While the victory yesterday appeared to have been a routine win for the Hammers netting three times at the London Stadium, it was certainly not short of controversy, with one moment being pointed out on Match of the Day 2 which was Dawson slamming his forearm into Pereira’s face.
This was just seconds before the Fulham midfielder was adjudged to have fouled Dawson, although this image of the defender may suggest that he was the one that committed the foul.
Was this a foul by Dawson?
Yes!
No!
TIF Thoughts on this incident…
Interestingly, this wasn’t the only big call in the game as Gianluca Scamacca was deemed to not have clearly handled the ball, as well as Michail Antonio who ended up scoring after handling. Both of these incidents were suggested to be wrong by Dion Dublin on MOTD2.
The still image above shows Pereira with his arms nowhere near Dawson and seemingly just holding his ground as the corner is set to come in, whereas Dawson does indeed throw his arm into the midfielder’s face.
The resulting penalty scored by Jarrod Bowen was what got West Ham back in the game and levelled things up after Fulham had taken a very early lead, and this, in the end, gave the Hammers a boost and lift to kick on and impose themselves on the game.
While the movement of Dawson’s arm may well be categorised as a natural movement, the fact that Pereira was penalised to have committed a foul, judging by this image, is quite bizarre.