West Ham United: Tony Cottee rages after what happened in controversial incident v Newcastle
Tony Cottee has taken aim at the officials for awarding Newcastle United an early penalty against West Ham on Saturday (30 March).
Writing on his Twitter page on Saturday, the pundit said it’s the people operating VAR who are the problem rather than the technology itself as Vladimir Coufal was adjudged to have fouled Anthony Gordon just two minutes into the game.
But Cottee is adamant that the Magpies winger was clearly in an offside position in the build-up to the penalty being given, where Alexander Isak scored the opening goal in his side’s 4-3 victory.
“VAR is not the problem, it’s the people who are running it,” said Cottee. “Gordon is clearly offside before the pen is given.”
Officiating not good enough in West Ham defeat against Newcastle
The officiating all round during the West Ham game against Newcastle simply wasn’t good enough from the first minute until the last.
There were a number of strange decisions that went against both sides, with clear yellow cards and free-kicks not being handed out and VAR failing to do its job correctly.
There has been some debate about the first penalty over whether Konstantinos Mavropanos made a direct play on the ball before it fell to Gordon in an offside position.
That one is debatable, but it was certainly not a clear and obvious error to initially not award a second penalty before Kalvin Phillips was eventually adjudged to have fouled Gordon following a VAR check.
While it was an entertaining game, where we shot ourselves in the foot with some of our decision-making, the officials once again proved that they are not good enough for this level.
In other West Ham news, David Sullivan has been blasted over his “ridiculous” comments in response to a Hammers controversy.
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