Rice and Randolph react as Lingard attacks VAR on Instagram
Jesse Lingard showed fighting spirit after West Ham lost to Chelsea and also had a go at VAR in his post-match Instagram post.
VAR became the talking point after Fabian Balbuena was sent off for clearing the ball, as he connected with Ben Chilwell’s calf in the follow-through.
Lingard called VAR a joke and Darren Randolph showed he felt the same in a comment responding to his teammate.
Declan Rice also reacted to the post but instead chose to be positive, saying they still have five games to give their all to qualify for the Champions League.
“Heads up and keep fighting. Still five games left P.S VAR IS A JOKE #believe,” read Lingard’s caption.
Rice responded saying, “Five finals to go brother! We got this.”
And Randolph added, “Five to go bro! Us against everyone else.”
Fighting spirit
It is natural for the players to be disheartened both with the defeat and the awful refereeing decision.
West Ham have suffered from terrible VAR calls before, so it is not surprising there has been such a big backlash from the players.
To lose a crucial game would ordinarily hurt most squads, but our stars are determined to put things right and are confident of responding well in the last five matches.
They showed that spirit on the pitch yesterday too, going toe to toe with a strong Chelsea side despite missing a number of key players, including Rice.
If we get the England international back fit along with Michail Antonio and Aaron Cresswell then we still have a good chance of qualifying for the Champions League.
And as long as we continue to show the same desire and determination we will put ourselves in a great position.
In other West Ham news, Andy Townsend was awestruck by an ‘amazing’ West Ham ace despite the 1-0 defeat to Chelsea.
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