Hinchcliffe slams Ayoze Perez for ‘Horrible’ challenge in West Ham v Leicester
Andy Hinchcliffe blasted Ayoze Perez for a “horrible challenge” on Pablo Fornals as Leicester lost 4-1 away at West Ham on Monday night.
After referee Michael Oliver was advised to revert to the pitch-side monitor to review the incident, Perez was shown a straight red card.
West Ham were 1-0 up at the time and went on to win the match with ease.
But it was a clear red card, according to Hinchcliffe, who was appalled by the nature of Perez’s challenge on Fornals in the first half.
“Well for me, VAR has absolutely done it’s job,” said Hinchcliffe during Sky Sports Main Event’s live coverage of the game on Monday night [08:39pm].
“Kasper Schmeichel and the Leicester players are complaining but the referee saw it in real-time and didn’t think there was much in it.
“VAR said have another look at it and I do think Michael Oliver has got this absolutely right because it is dangerous and reckless.
“It’s a horrible challenge.”
Horrific challenge
Here’s why VAR can be a good thing in the game.
In real-time, you can forgive a referee for missing something like that.
Perez’s challenge saw legs tangle at a high speed and the human eye and brain cannot process something happening that quickly.
VAR was right to get Oliver to watch the incident again on the pitch-side screen and the referee was spot on to show a straight red card for Perez.
It was a sickening challenge that could have broken Fornals’ leg.
Luckily, that didn’t happen but those challenges need to be discouraged because they’re so dangerous.
Perez is a professional footballer. It’s very unlikely that he doesn’t have control over where he’s putting his feet.
We doubt that he meant to hurt Fornals but he may have wanted to leave something on his fellow Spaniard, who had earlier opened the scoring for West Ham at the London Stadium.
Perez is now banned for three matches and rightly so.
In other West Ham news, Dharmesh Sheth says there’s every chance the Irons will sign this international forward.
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