Chelsea beat West Ham at Stamford Bridge [Credit: Sky Sports Football]
Chelsea beat West Ham at Stamford Bridge [Credit: Sky Sports Football]
Match

Chelsea v West Ham United: Ex-PGMOL chief amazed at footage from Stamford Bridge

Keith Hackett
Keith Hackett

Refereeing Consultant AUTHORITY Former FIFA Referee; Head of PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited). FOCUS Laws of the Game, VAR implementation, officiating performance, and PGMOL policy. THE AUDIT Keith utilises Statscore’s Officiating Telemetry, including Deep-Data Metrics like Incident Accuracy Rates, VAR Intervention Latency, and Official Positional Efficiency. He provides technical refereeing analysis to reveal the regulatory reality behind match-defining decisions.

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Keith Hackett is "amazed" that the equaliser scored by Chelsea in the 2-1 win over West Ham United was allowed to stand.

"Special" Jarrod Bowen opened the scoring for the Hammers on his return from injury in Monday's (3 January) Premier League clash, only for Pedro Neto to contentiously level before Aaron Wan-Bissaka's own goal.

West Ham were furious Neto's goal was awarded as Levi Colwill appeared to foul Bowen early on in the build-up, with VAR also checking for offside against Marc Cucurella.

Reacting to footage he saw from the incident at Stamford Bridge, former PGMOL chief Hackett exclusively told West Ham Zone: "I am amazed that the foul on West Ham's Bowen was not penalised immediately.

"The referee was wrong to allow the game to progress, which resulted in Chelsea scoring. The goal should have been ruled out."

West Ham robbed of victory against Chelsea

There is no way of knowing how the match would have panned out had this goal not stood. For all we know, Chelsea could still have gone on to win.

But with United a goal to the good with more than an hour played, they looked well positioned to at the very least take a point back with them across London.

Stuart Atwell is as experienced as they come, but his failure to initially award a free-kick for Colwill's challenge on Bowen was a howler.

Jarrod Bowen
West Ham United ace Jarrod Bowen [Credit: Imago]

This is another example of the terrible standard of officiating in the Premier League right now, and it is something Graham Potter will be left to stew on for a couple of weeks.

In other West Ham news, the Irons look set to cut losses with a player despite the window shutting on Monday.

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West Ham United
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Keith Hackett
www.westhamzone.com