My lovely late Aunt Joyce used to sit in the old Riverside Stand by the Hammersmith End.
She would castigate linesmen who judged Fulham offside and referees who failed to award penalties to the home team. And she would have been especially outraged by Sunday’s events at the London Stadium.
It had begun so well. Marco Silva’s men looked determined to overturn the club’s poor record against West Ham and its reputation for starting games slowly. Wisely, the manager had allowed Aleksandar Mitrovic more time to recover from injury – but the team still looked stronger for the return of Joao Paulhinha and Antonee Robinson.
Fulham actually took the lead in the fifth minute when Carlos Vinicius, deputising for Mitro, initiated a movement that led to Andreas Pereira foxing Lukasz Fabianski with a shot from the tightest of angles.
In his brief time at the club Andreas has shown himself to be both talented and reckless. The latter quality made him an easy target for Craig Dawson. After a couple of skirmishes, the referee Chris Kavanagh gave both men a final warning. A corner kick resulted in the Fulham player apparently wrestling Dawson to the ground and Mr Kavanagh pointed to the penalty spot.
Those in charge of VAR must have seen the Hammer charging at Pereira, who inevitably used his arms to resist. It was 50-50 but no call came to cancel the decision (two yellow cards would have been fairer). Jarrod Bowen scored from the spot.
More VAR drama
Although this encouraged West Ham, the visitors still could aspire to victory – Dan James had already hit the crossbar and he and Kebano were a regular threat to the defence.
West Ham also had their moments, and the match swung their way around the hour mark when Gianluca Scamaccio lobbed Bernd Leno.
The Italian did not celebrate at first because Fulham were appealing for both offside and handball. Once again, VAR failed to intervene, much to Silva’s disgust. TV showed clearly that though the player was not offside the ball had hit his arm nudging it away from Tim Ream. Later that day, Marcus Rashford had a goal disallowed for a similar accidental deflection.
Hopes of saving a point vanished when Michail Antonio, brought on in the 80th minute, pounced on a rare mix-up by Bernd and Ream to score an easy goal.
TV cameras revealed another handball, deliberate this time, but no reprieve came from VAR. Match of the Day 2 on BBC relayed the official reason for non-intervention: the handball had not directly led to the goal. Even so, it was an infringement that the referee missed and I thought that was the reason for using VAR.
So, Fulham lost 3-1 just as they did on West Ham territory four seasons ago with Antonio also netting the final goal. The Italian used his head that day unlike his team-mate Chicharito, who scored with his hand. What is it with the Hammers?
Referee troubles
Chris Kavanagh is not Fulham’s favourite referee. Many fans recall the final match of the dreadful 2020-21 season, where he awarded Newcastle’s Matt Ritchie a soft penalty.
Yet two seasons before that he ignored Cardiff’s penalty appeals when Mitro tugged an opponent to the ground far more vigorously than anything that Pereira did to Dawson.
VAR is here to stay. Without it, Chris Kavanagh might still have allowed all three West Ham goals because the infringements were hard to see in real time.
But as presently operated the system undermines the officials on the pitch and causes dismay and confusion when a mistake is not overturned. As Tim Ream says, it’s swings and roundabouts ‘and hopefully we see a benefit of that in the future’.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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