West Ham United manager David Moyes hit out at a critical decision made by referee Chris Kavanagh in his side’s 1-0 loss to Chelsea in an extremely important London derby. send off Balbuena after a VAR check.
Late in the second half, the Hammers’ Fabian Balbuena got entangled with Chelsea defender Ben Chilwell while following through after the clearing ball. It appeared, to most observers, to be incidental contact, but Kavanagh was instructed to do a VAR check, and the result was a sending off for Balbuena, which effectively ended any hopes of an Irons comeback.
Moyes called it a “a rank, rotten decision,” and who could blame him, as the ruling reduced his team to 10 men, and almost everybody who was watching (unless they’re hard core Chelsea partisans) thought the red card was a terrible call.
While West Ham can’t blame the loss on just that blown call, the result left them now three full points behind their opponents for the fourth and final Champions League qualification slot.
“A rank, rotten decision,” Moyes said to the media after the match.
“We lost to a team very much in form and maybe we could have got closer without the red card.”
There were other iffy calls too, and Moyes believes that Chelsea’s Antonio Rudiger should, or at least could, have been sent off for a potential foul on Vladimir Coufal late in the match.
“I just thought it was a really poor decision. I don’t know who stopped the game. I thought it was supposed to be clear and obvious [error],” Moyes continued.
“But it shows me the person making the decision has never played the game. I don’t see anywhere else he can put his foot.
“Five minutes later the same thing happened with Coufal and Rudiger and if the first was a red why did they not review that incident? The consistency is dire.”
It’s a tough loss to take, sure, but West Ham will have to swallow the bitter bill and regroup. They have five games left now, starting with May 3 against Burnley.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.