Robbie Savage furious about Gianluca Scamacca and Michail Antonio West Ham United goals
Robbie Savage has suggested that neither Gianluca Scamacca or Michail Antonio’s West Ham goals against Fulham should have stood, as part of his fury at officiating.
The Hammers came from behind to win 3-1 against the Cottagers on Sunday (9 October), with the Italian’s second surviving a long VAR review for the ball touching his hand, while Antonio’s third also left Marco Silva unhappy over a potential handball in the build-up.
Savage was also commentating on BT Sport for Chelsea’s Champions League win over AC Milan on Wednesday (12 October), where the Blues benefited from a penalty and red card for former defender Fikayo Tomori, and all three decisions have caused the former Wales international to reach breaking point with referees.
In his Mirror column on Friday (14 October) railing against officiating and VAR he said: “At the other end of the pitch, a goal by West Ham’s Gianluca Scamacca against Fulham was allowed to stand despite his handball leading directly to a goal.
“And Michail Antonio may have handled it TWICE before scoring to make it 3-1.
“In many cases, VAR’s application of the laws was wrong or negligent. And the inconsistency in that bunker at Stockley Park is absolutely infuriating – for players, managers, fans, pundits… everyone.
“I was all in favour of VAR when it was introduced, but now it’s reached the stage where we need to bin it.”
Reactionary
The inconsistency between different decisions are indeed a source of great frustration for managers and fans across the country, as it is confusing that even a group of top level officials in the same league and under the same guidance can routinely see the same situations so differently.
Getting rid of VAR won’t get rid of the inconsistency, but it will lead to more actual mistakes being missed, which will be equally infuriating.
Marcus Rashford’s goal at Everton was disallowed later on the same day as the West Ham game, for a situation somewhere in between Scamacca’s and Antonio’s, which obviously would be annoying with a clear precedent set at the London Stadium.
On the whole people would probably prefer for those iffy decisions to go in the attacker’s favour so more goals are scored, until of course it occurs against their own team in which case they will be outraged.
The rules do over-complicate matters, and the VAR operators provide a level of decision making which is more baffling than the on-pitch referees, but it’s likely that most people will be furious most of the time whatever the system in place, and judgment calls will never be universal.
VAR or not, nothing can account for individual officials making decisions that go against what looks obvious, as was the case with the decision to rule out Maxwel Cornet’s West Ham equaliser at Chelsea on 3 September, and there will always be those that take the opposite viewpoint on principle.
Savage is sure to be one of the most outraged either way, as his inability to grasp the idea that once the penalty at the San Siro had been awarded Tomori had to be sent off since it wasn’t an attempt at the ball, showed.
If the experts who are supposed to be making things understandable for the average fan don’t understand the rules enough to know what is going on, then people will be upset even in instances where there is no need to be.