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Jermaine Jenas rages at incident in West Ham United loss v Crystal Palace as new footage shown by Match of the Day
Jermaine Jenas was left raging at the controversial penalty awarded to Crystal Palace as West Ham United suffered a 4-3 defeat at Selhurst Park on Saturday [29 April].
In an enthralling contest in South London, the Hammers failed to all but secure their Premier League status for next season as they fell to a disappointing defeat leaving them just five points clear of Leicester City who sit in 18th.
Goals from Jordan Ayew, Wilfried Zaha, Jeffrey Schlupp and an Ebere Eze penalty succumbed the Hammers to their second successive Premier League defeat.
And Jenas was not happy at Craig Pawson’s decision to award Eze a decisive penalty after he was supposedly fouled in the box by Nayef Aguerd.
Speaking on BBC Match of the Day, discussing the footage [29 April, 14m:11sec], he said: “Yeah, I think it’s a soft penalty.”
“He’s well within his rights David Moyes to be upset with the outcome, he had a tricky one in the week that he was upset about with VAR as well and this one falls in a similar bracket, I don’t think it’s a penalty at all.
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“I think it’s great link-up play between Eze and Jordan Ayew and this is the angle that VAR looked at, for me, that’s a poor angle. There’s no contact between the feet position of Aguerd and Eze and the arm just kinda glances him in his midriff and I just think that’s as soft as it gets, really.”
Poor
Pawson’s decision was indeed poor and the fact that VAR missed the soft nature of the decision is really baffling and just goes to show how the referees using the technology simply do not know what they are doing.
That decision has proved costly for West Ham United now, and it’s becoming a running joke throughout the campaign now, and something has got to be done by the Premier League to address this mess.
However, whether Eze’s penalty was right to be given or not, David Moyes will be absolutely livid at his side’s dreadful and poor defending.
To concede four goals the way West Ham United did is just another telling reminder as to why the club are where they are in the Premier League table.
To score three goals away from home and still lose the game is increasingly frustrating and if West Ham United are to firmly secure their English top-flight spot for next season, such nature of defending simply cannot be the order of every one of their remaining games or else they are in dire trouble once again.
Refereeing decisions won’t help a club who can’t help themselves and that was how things panned out against Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon as West Ham United lacked quality and defensive organisation. Poor refereeing, poor defending all round.