Ray Parlour reacts to controversial incident in West Ham United v Freiburg live on talkSPORT
Ray Parlour doesn’t believe West Ham should have been awarded a penalty against Freiburg on Thursday (7 March).
Speaking on talkSPORT on Friday (8 March, 08:43am), the pundit said the problem is the inconsistency and that he can see why the Hammers believe a spot-kick should have been given for handball in the final moments of their 1-0 defeat against the Bundesliga side.
But he added that it “wasn’t clear-cut” as the referee decided not to give a penalty after a four-minute check from VAR in the Europa League last-16 clash.
“The problem we’ve got is the inconsistency because that sometimes is given,” said Parlour. “I can see what West Ham are saying because a lot of the time they’ve been given for that sort of incident and it wasn’t.
“It was a big call. I would say it’s not because it wasn’t clear-cut, but it’s the consistency which is lacking with football and handball situations.”
West Ham unfortunate with penalty decision against Freiburg
It’s pretty baffling how a former player doesn’t see that as a penalty as it was a blatant handball from Noah Weisshaupt in injury time.
That situation, where a player’s arms are raised above their head, has been a spot-kick just about every single time this season, making it even more surprising that the decision wasn’t given.
It looked as though the referee was surely going to point to the spot after looking at the monitor for several minutes, but he seemed to indicate that Tomas Soucek may have pushed the Freiburg player before it hit his hand.
It’s a pretty difficult one to take, but we have to move on now and put that result quickly behind us after it wasn’t the best performance on the night in Germany.
But the tie is still very much in the balance and, after beating them twice already in the group stages this season, we should be confident that we can turn things around at the London Stadium on 14 March.
In other West Ham news, sources have claimed a Premier League manager is now in the frame to replace Moyes.
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