Henry Winter stunned by ‘bizarre’ West Ham United v Chelsea incident as ex-FIFA man reacts
Henry Winter has been left stunned by a “bizarre” Crysencio Summerville incident during the clash between West Ham United and Chelsea.
Julen Lopetegui’s side continued their miserable start to the Premier League season with a 3-0 defeat to the Blues on Saturday (21 September) but the Irons were denied what appeared to be a clear penalty.
Summerville was pulled back in the penalty area by Wesley Fofana only for the referee to wave away the Irons’ appeals, with former FIFA referee Keith Hackett suggesting the official was “let down” by VAR.
Writing on X on Saturday (21 September) Hackett said: “Henry they are making it up. Referee should have expected VAR intervention. Let down.”
Former Times journalist Winter quickly replied: “Just bizarre, Keith. Time for specialist VARs?”
Should West Ham have had a penalty against Chelsea at the London Stadium?
It is bizarre that the rules around what is or isn’t a penalty seem to change with each and every passing week in the Premier League.
Summerville was clearly pulled back as he entered the Chelsea box on Saturday and while it could be argued the Dutchman went down a little too easy, there was more than enough contact to warrant a spot-kick.
Even if the referee wasn’t able to spot it in real-time, the whole point of VAR being introduced was to ensure that these sorts of slight fouls weren’t missed by the officials and were rightly punished in retrospect.
Whether or not that penalty would have changed much in Saturday afternoon’s game is open to debate. The Hammers looked miles off of the pace set by Chelsea and they were already 2-0 down at the time of the incident.
However, it doesn’t matter whether or not the decision would have had an impact. Something needs to change to ensure that there is some level of consistency week in and week out in the Premier League.
Whether that be specialist VAR officials as Winter suggests, or a more clear set of guidelines, it is obvious that some work needs to be done.
In other West Ham news, Brendan Rodgers’ stance on a Celtic exit has been predicted after a move to the London Stadium was mooted
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