Richard Keys blasts officials for controversial decisions in West Ham United win v Fulham
Richard Keys has blasted the officials for allowing Michail Antonio and Gianluca Scamacca’s goal for West Ham against Fulham on Sunday.
The Hammers came from a goal down to beat Fulham 3-1 after Jarrod Bowen, Scamacca and Antonio scored to cancel out Andreas Pereira’s strike despite controversial handball appeals.
And Keys, writing in his weekly blog [10 October], labelled the whole thing a “mess” and admitted that he felt Scamacca was “lucky” to get his name on the scoresheet for the third game in a row.
“What about the mess the match centre made of the goals that Antonio and Rashford scored?” he said.
“They were identical – but VAR allowed Antonio’s v Fulham – and later ruled out Rashford’s at Everton. Antonio has admitted that of course he’d handled the ball. The match centre told us they’d seen it but that the offence hadn’t led ‘directly to a goal’. What? It did. He scored.
“The difference between that goal and Rashford’s at Everton was what? Either both should’ve stood – or both should’ve been disallowed.
“In fairness to Fulham, I’d say Scamacca was lucky as well. He didn’t celebrate his goal because he expected it to be ruled out. And so it should’ve been.”
Nonsense
There is no way that Keys could have categorically said that the ball touched Scamacca’s hand or arm at the time, and that’s why the goal was given.
VAR can’t make a decision if they can’t be certain and that was quite clearly the case for the Italian, which is why the goal stood. Most people thought it was because of offside rather than the handball, so it quite clearly wasn’t an obvious error.
As for Antonio, the decision was explained by Dermot Gallagher who surely has far more knowledge on the laws of the game than Keys does.
When the Fulham player intervened in the play and Antonio scored the rebound to his initial shot, it was a new phase of play and therefore VAR couldn’t look at the previous offence.
Keys just likes to try and stay relevant and while it was a handball, it’s the rule that should be looked at not West Ham and that’s the end of that.