Adrian Durham goes on VAR tirade after Balbuena red card rescinded
Adrian Durham launched a tirade against VAR after West Ham defender Fabian Balbuena had his red card rescinded by the PGMOL on Tuesday.
The Hammers appealed Balbuena’s red card after Saturday’s defeat and for the second time this season they have been successful in getting a decision overturned, following Tomas Soucek’s red at Fulham.
But Durham is still outraged by the affair, and aimed significant criticism at VAR, referee Chris Kavanagh and even talkSPORT colleague Jason Cundy.
On talkSPORT’s Drive, Durham said, “Overall have we stopped having really shockingly bad decisions? No, we haven’t we’ve still got them.
“Is this really better than it was before? I think it’s worse now.
“We were all accepting VAR before because by the end of the season we would have ruled out those big errors that really change things over the course of a season.
“Well you’ve just seen yet again the second season of VAR and they’ve messed it up, we’ll never know what would have happened to West Ham.
“They’re on 55 points, Chelsea on 58 because they won. If Balbuena stays on, as he should, most of us realised – apart from Jason Cundy – it was never a red card.
“He’s [Kavanagh] got it categorically wrong, as proven tonight because the red’s been overturned.”
Farcical
The standard of refereeing needs to be addressed as this calamity was not the result of VAR alone.
Mike Dean made a similar atrocious error in January when he sent off Soucek for accidentally touching Aleksandar Mitrovic with his elbow, despite watching replays on the VAR monitor.
The fact both Dean and Kavanagh had ample time to review the two incidents makes it even more remarkable that they reached the wrong decision.
Durham hits the nail on the head with his assessment.
We trailed Chelsea 1-0 when Balbuena was dismissed and with 11 men on the pitch we could have found a way through to score a vital equaliser.
Instead, we are now three points off top four and our chances of Champions League qualification have taken a huge dent.
That is simply unfair and means we could miss out on a fantastic achievement due to forces beyond our control – something must be done about VAR and referring standards in the Premier League.
In other West Ham news, EXWHUemployee delivers significant update on Michail Antonio.