West Ham United v Burnley: TNT Sports pundit issues verdict on controversy
Steve McManaman has delivered his verdict on the controversial incident in the first half of the 2-1 win for West Ham v Burnley at Turf Moor.
Luca Koleosho was inside the Hammers penalty area and he seemed to have got the ball past Vladimir Coufal whose leg brought down the 19-year-old.
However, on reviewing the decision, the VAR felt no reason to guide the on-field referee to have a look at the incident again.
McManaman, a TNT Sports pundit, said on Premier League’s world feed on 25 November at 16:00: “We keep talking about re-refereeing the game. There was an extended leg. But I thought it was a penalty. You can see this, Coufal turns his body, and he extends his right leg.”
Lucky
West Ham can count themselves fortunate at Turf Moor as Koleosho’s dribble past Coufal for Burnley presented a strong case for a penalty that went unnoticed by the officials.
Upon reevaluating the replay, it becomes evident that the challenge on the Italian warranted a more critical assessment.
Coufal’s involvement in preventing the 19-year-old’s progression with a potential foul could have shifted the dynamics of the game, offering Burnley a valuable opportunity from the spot.
The luck for West Ham lies in the fact that the referee and VAR, in this instance, did not intervene to rectify what appears to be a missed call.
The failure to award Burnley a penalty deprived them of a chance to alter the course of the game and highlighted the element of luck that played in West Ham’s favour on that particular occasion.
Moyes will undoubtedly have been delighted with that as his side would’ve gone into the break trailing 1-0.
In other West Ham news, a BBC pundit has admitted that he’ll come out of retirement just to play with a West Ham star after what he did recently.