By Joe Ellis

7th Nov, 2022 | 7:10am

West Ham United ace Michail Antonio slammed for 'ridiculously bad' moment v Crystal Palace

West Ham United were beaten at home by Crystal Palace but Micah Richards was especially disgruntled with one Hammers ace.

With the game in the balance, Michail Antonio surged into the box and Eagles defenders tried to stop him and it looked at first glance as if he had won a penalty and the referee agreed on the field.

But a look at VAR showed a very obvious dive from the West Ham man and Micah Richards did not hold back in his criticism of the Jamaican international.

“He does so brilliantly and when I first saw it I thought ‘oh he’s got a penalty,” Richards said on Match of the Day 2. “But you will see the other angle and it is a ridiculously bad dive.

“Sorry Michail, if you were here, I’m sure you would say the same but he does all the hard work and then just, what is he doing? The size of him, he goes down so easy.”

Embarrassing

In truth, Antonio should already know that what he did was quite obvious and embarrassing to an extent but it does show the stage that football has got to.

Players know that they have to dive over onto the ground to get any kind of decision and those who are fully honest and try to stay on their feet are the ones actually getting punished.

It should be the other way around in all honesty as only that would discourage diving and there has been a spike in the number of incidents like this recently.

VAR now means that any touch on a player can be seen as a foul when slowed down to within an inch of its life and that has given attackers the chance to fall over at the lightest touch.

West Ham are just as guilty as any other team in trying to gain an advantage from this but the Premier League and the FA have to get a grip on things before it gets out of hand.