WHZ Moment of the Match: VAR takes centre stage to rescue West Ham three points
West Ham United continued their winning run in the Premier League on Monday evening against Aston Villa.
Angelo Ogbonna and Jarrod Bowen scored either side of a Jack Grealish strike as it finished 2-1 at the London Stadium.
It wasn’t a game short of controversy though, with Villa missing a penalty and also having a late equaliser ruled out by VAR.
West Ham Zone have selected that VAR call as their Moment of the Match.
The Irons haven’t had to deal with the system too much this season, but it was used frequently last night in the win.
First of all, it didn’t overturn Villa’s penalty after a slight shirt-pull by Declan Rice – one which easily could have happened.
Then came the big one, as Ollie Watkins was deemed to have been offside.
The simple part of this is, it is offside.
Whether or not it is just Watkins’ sleeve, it is still just across the line and there has to be some sort of consistency after Patrick Bamford’s goal was disallowed last month.
David Moyes commented on the decision, and he got to the end of it with just one glance.
“I don’t know why it took so long,” he said via the Evening Standard. “I’ve had one quick glance at it and it looked offside to me when it happened. If they were looking for something else I don’t know.”
There were some suggestions that Ogbonna had actually fouled Watkins, and that it should have been a penalty, another one.
Either way, the striker was offside, so even if it was a foul, it shouldn’t have counted because that decision would have been chalked off.
Three points are three points though, and we can move on and look forward now.
In other West Ham United news, three things learned about Irons v Aston Villa win