Ian Wright apologises to Wolves on Match of the Day after what he said about loss v West Ham United
Ian Wright has apologised to Wolves after being left speechless by Max Kilman’s goal against West Ham being disallowed on Saturday.
Wolves thought they scored a late equaliser in their 2-1 defeat at Molineux but Tony Harrington was sent to the pitchside monitor by VAR after a potential offside was spotted.
Harrington then chalked off Wolves’ goal and awarded West Ham a free-kick after he adjudged that Tawanda Chirewa was offside for impeding Lukasz Fabianski’s line of sight.
Gary O’Neil and his Wolves players went into a complete meltdown after the goal was disallowed and West Ham went on to win and Arsenal legend Wright clearly doesn’t feel the decision was correct.
Speaking on Match of the Day on Saturday night (6 April), Wright said: “He can move. He’s not impeding him to stop him from moving. I can’t tell you how gutted I am for Gary O’Neil and Wolves for that one because, like I said, the goalkeeper’s not being impeded. He can move.
Gary Lineker said: “The thing is with that law, the goalkeeper can move behind the defender to try and win that offside.”
Wright said: “Yes, exactly. It doesn’t make sense.
“It’s a tough one. I don’t know what to say to Wolves and Gary O’Neil but I apologise to them. It’s a nightmare for you guys.”
Was Tawanda Chirewa offside in Wolves defeat v West Ham United?
In a nutshell, yes he was.
Chirewa was very clearly stood in an offside position when Kilman’s header went towards the West Ham goal.
Although he didn’t touch the ball, the Wolves player was stood in front of Fabianski, who would have had his line of sight to Kilman’s header seriously impeded.
We’ve seen a lot of people make the argument that Fabianski would not have been able to save Kilman’s header regardless of whether Chirewa was stood in front of him or not.
But that’s beside the point. Fabianski could have saved it if Chirewa wasn’t there.
On Match of the Day, they seemed to blame Fabianski for not moving himself into a position where he could see but that’s utterly ridiculous. Why not suggest Chirewa isn’t stood in an offside position?
That’s going to be the reaction though when you have three former strikers in a studio assessing the situation. We’re sure that most pundits who used to be goalkeepers or defenders would argue in West Ham’s favour that the decision was correct.
And it was correct.
Harsh, but correct.
In other West Ham news, Jason Cundy and Jamie O’Hara argued about the latest controversy live on air.
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