Former England and Arsenal centre-back Martin Keown has agreed with West Ham United manager David Moyes after his frustrations during Sunday’s 1-1 draw with Southampton.
Moyes was left frustrated by referee Peter Bankes and VAR official Simon Hooper at St Mary’s over two first-half decisions, one of which left the Hammers’ Scottish manager frustrated that his side were not given a penalty kick after Tomas Soucek was bought down in the penalty box from a corner by Romain Perraud.
Perraud clearly grapples Soucek with the French defender not even looking at the ball and instead just staring at Soucek, leading to Moyes telling Hooper to go to Specsavers.
READ MORE: David Moyes hits out at VAR official over Southampton’s goal and penalty claim in West Ham draw
Speaking on the decision not to award the penalty, ex-Arsenal defender Keown and former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy felt the Hammers should have been given a penalty.
“Well I’m in the David Moyes camp because I do feel there that certainly should have been a penalty,” said Keown on BBC’s Match of the Day 2.
“Perraud here on Soucek. I’m never happy when a player is not actually looking at the ball, he takes his eyes off him and he’s just wrestled him to the ground. It’s clear that one is a penalty, it has to be a foul. It’s just ridiculous.”
“If the ref does not see it, it’s not the end of the world, but then go back to VAR,” replied Murphy. “What are they looking at if they don’t think that is a penalty?
Keown added: “There is no former players in the VAR box is there because we are not deemed worthy of being there but we played the game and we know what goes on and that is a clear foul.”
There was more controversy surrounding Southampton’s first half goal scored by Perraud, whose long shot at the end of an uncleared Kyle Walker-Peters long throw deflected off Ben Johnson and in.
However, after Soucek’s clearance was miss-hit, Jarrod Bowen was in line to chase it down and clear it, but was blocked off by referee Bankes, with Perraud getting clear onto the ball and shooting to make it 1-0.
Keown thinks that although the laws of the game suggests there was no wrong-doing, common sense should have been used and the goal be disallowed.
“I believe he does get in the way and many times when I played, the referee would stop the game if he felt or deemed he was in the way,” explained Keown. "He must feel that he hasn’t played a significant part in this goal.
“I think he does. If that’s me, I’m just going to clear the referee out of the way, but Bowen is very nice, steps out of the way and then it is a nasty deflection. That’s a miss-clearance there and in fairness, he (Soucek) could have cleared the ball but the referee is in the way.”
“He’s not in the way by the letter of the law, we must clear that up,” replied Murphy. “The ball has to hit the referee for it to be deemed in the law book that he’s in the way.”
Keown responded: “It’s subjective though. In his opinion, he’s so close to it I don’t think he realises how much or who he is impacting on. I think the referee will be disappointed when he looks back because they hate being in the way of the players.”
“I feel for West Ham,” added Murphy.
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