West Ham star comments on VAR after controversy in games against Spurs & Chelsea
West Ham United midfielder Mark Noble has slammed VAR in the Premier League after a number of controversies in the Irons’ recent games.
Tottenham’s goal against the Hammers in the 2-0 defeat could have been disallowed for handball but it wasn’t, much to the dismay of Tomas Soucek.
After that, the Czech international scored against Chelsea, a goal that was disallowed for offside at the London Stadium.
Noble claimed that it would be hard to argue that VAR has actually improved football, with it going more than a century without it.
“As for VAR, I can’t see how it has improved the game. I know sometimes when the decision goes your way you think, ‘Yes, it’s brilliant’, but often they are obvious decisions,” he wrote in his Evening Standard column.
“The decision to award Spurs a goal against us nine days ago was just wrong, as was the one against Chelsea. We have been on the really rough end of VAR this season.
“It took almost three and a half minutes before our ‘goal’ was ruled out on Wednesday, yet we only played three extra minutes at the end of the first half. How can that be? It should take no longer than 30 seconds anyway.
“If you can’t do it in that time, just go with the referee’s decision. I think everyone would accept that. We’ve played football for more than a century without VAR. Has it improved things? Not for me.”
It has certainly gone against the Hammers more times than not this season, and the Tottenham controversy was the pick of a bad bunch.
The blushes of Soucek could have been saved in the 2-0 defeat as he scored an own goal, but the ball hit the arm of Davinson Sanchez in the build-up.
When you compare that to the goal that Spurs had disallowed against Sheffield United on Saturday, it certainly should have been chalked off.
Thankfully, it didn’t come back to haunt the Hammers against Chelsea, with that three points potentially crucial in the relegation battle.
In other West Ham United news, Noble has detailed the reasoning behind his absence in the victory against Chelsea