Joel Matip returns home to Liverpool after scoring his first goal of the season. summary
For nearly five years, the Var project has been accused of many things: changing the judges' minds and driving offsides, but never of «contempt» — an accusation leveled against him last night by an extremely enraged David Moyes.
He spoke of a handball that was not given against substitute Thiago Alcantara in the last minute of '90 when he lunged at West Ham substitute Danny Ings in the Liverpool penalty area.
The ball bounced up and hit Thiago's arm at least twice, possibly three times as he went down, and on the sideline Moyes was already chasing fourth official Andy Davis for a decision.
Referee Chris Kavanagh did not award a penalty, and his Stockley Park var Neil Swarbrick did not consider it worthy of consideration. By then, West Ham were already in contention for a point, giving winner Joel Matip some second-half mark that even Moyes called «sloppy».
However, by the end it was back to being an interpretation of handball law and whether handball still felt the way handball should be. The question that Moyes plaintively posed to his BT Sport interviewer, receiving no response, to his satisfaction, was: «Do you think that would have been given at Anfield?»
He later went even further, wondering why Kavanagh and Swarbrick didn't take the incident as a direction, and preempting what he saw as «garbage» of a likely denial from PGMOL, Referee ' body.
«If you lie on the ground in the box, you risk it.»
Joe Cole, @CarltonCole1 and @petercrouch discuss whether West Ham should have awarded a penalty at the end match with Liverpool 😮 pic. twitter.com/D7LXJ02CZg
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball), April 26, 2023
PGMOL's explanation would be: Thiago was falling and therefore couldn't prevent falling on the ball. His hand, by law, was in a natural position. According to Moyes, his hand was in this position because of the undoubtedly wild — and unnatural — lunge that Thiago made on Ings.
Under the circumstances, this seemed like a reasonable argument from the West Ham manager, who was looking at the incident through a wider lens than just hand in hand. “You might hear them [PGMOL] spout some nonsense about him needing to cushion the fall,” Moyes said.
“Well, if you lunge for the ball, you know it's your own fault for lunging and failing to catch it. You can break the fall by slipping and lowering your arm, but he charged for the ball. For me, this completely negates everything about fall prevention. I think it's a penalty.
“The hardest thing to survive is disrespect from Var. At least this Var didn't say, «Perhaps it's worth a look» [in the review]. So that tells me they don't even see a close solution. I am surprised. There are a lot of football people here… I bet you've seen a lot worse lately.»
Did Moyes understand what handball is now? He said yes, although again there was a feeling that he instinctively believed that the law was to blame.
“The rules of handball have changed dramatically and I don’t like a lot about them,” he said. “Do I think the boy wanted to hit his arm? No, it's not. But do I think that with his actions he prevented the passage of the ball [on goal]? Yes.»
It's not like a phone call and talking to Howard Webb will help. As Moyes himself said, West Ham need points. They are only five points away from Leicester City in 18th place with six to go. «We need to score points to be a Premier League team,» he said.
His team took the lead thanks to Lucas Paqueta in the 12th minute, a beautiful double exchange with Mihail Antonio, and then a strong right-foot shot past Paqueta's Brazil teammate Alisson.
“They are like animals,” Jurgen Klopp later said, praising the chasing power of his midfield, including a rejuvenated Curtis Jones. Klopp thought it was a much better result. his side returns one target down. “This is by far the best response to failure,” he said.
“In the past it was [defeat]. I didn't see that body language this time.» Cody Gakpo equalized with a weird, slippery shot that was accurate but seemed to beat Lukasz Fabianski with his rebound rather than speed.
An assist from Trent Alexander-Arnold, again an inverted wingback, playing in front of the defense and holding the ball like a deep-lying midfielder. Since this experiment began against Arsenal, he has made five assists in five games, more than in his previous 40.
Liverpool weren't as far behind as Cody Gakpo. a long-range strike equalizes them of their control. “I just want to take something as best as I can from the season,” he said, “and if it’s a European competition, great.”
When Klopp's side lost to Manchester City 25 days earlier, they were eighth, seven points behind fourth. Unbeaten in five games, Liverpool are two places better but still six points short of a Champions League spot. Sunday's game against Spurs is crucial to their progress.
West Ham United — Liverpool lineups 22-23 PL
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