West Ham have been told by Premier League officials that two contentious decisions given against them by referees in recent games were the wrong calls. Now, David Moyes has revealed that PGMOL – the group formed in 2001 to ‘improve refereeing standards in the UK – have told West Ham that both of those big calls were the wrong ones.
David Moyes said: “I think this year the referees have had their best performances up until the last couple of weeks. After the game, I wasn’t sure about the [red card] but we did get clarification to say it was the wrong decision from the referees and that it shouldn’t have been a sending off. We also got clarification to say we should have got a penalty at Burnley. Recently we just feel as if we’ve had a couple of instances that haven’t gone for us which could obviously change things.”
Moyes added that he didn’t think VAR was being used in the right way during these moments. West Ham have been on the end of their fair share of VAR controversies this season, with the technology playing a major role in each of their last three Premier League matches as they’ve slipped out of the top four.
David Moyes added: “I think for me the disappointment is they are not working well enough between the referee and whoever is in the VAR studio to get the decision right. I find it really hard that we have two sets of eyes and they are not getting it correct. I have been a football player and a manager, I would hope if I’m sitting in front of a TV from four or five angles I would have a really good opinion. If I was unsure I would certainly send the referee over to say ‘why don’t we collaborate on this?’ to see how it goes rather than just leaving it to one person to do it.”
