West Ham was denied a late penalty as they fell to a 2-1 loss to Liverpool, and David Moyes charged the VAR with “disrespect.”
Thiago’s arm touched the ball when he challenged Danny Ings in the box, but the referee decided not to give a penalty, prompting Moyes to confront Chris Kavanagh aggressively on the pitch at full time.
The Hammers manager believed that VAR Neil Swarbrick ought to have at the very least instructed Kavanagh to watch the event on the pitchside monitor.
“I’ve a chance to see it since,” said Moyes. “The difference for me is, and you’ll probably hear them coming out with some rubbish about he needed to break his fall, but if you lunge it’s your own fault for lunging and being out of control in the tackle.
“You can break your fall by sliding and having to put your arm down but when you lunge for the ball, for me, that completely nullifies anything they’re talking about breaking your fall. I think it’s a penalty kick.
“I think the hardest thing to take is the disrespect from VAR, that VAR wouldn’t have at least said to the referee that this might be worth having a look. That tells me they don’t see that as even close to a decision. I’m surprised.
“Somebody in VAR didn’t have enough football knowledge to understand that this could be close.
“Whoever it was chose not to send the referee. VAR, for me, showed no respect whatsoever to us.
“The handball rule has changed dramatically and I don’t like a lot of it, to be fair. Do I think the boy meant tonight for it to hit his hand? No I didn’t. But he got his hand in the way of a ball going through made by his own actions.
“Look, it’s not about that (an apology). They might need to apologise to the football club because we’re trying to get points to be a Premier League team.”
Joel Matip’s towering header saw Liverpool come from behind pick up a third straight win.
The Hammers led through a wonder strike from Lucas Paqueta but were pegged back by Cody Gakpo’s long-range drive.
And moments after Jarrod Bowen had a goal disallowed for offside, Matip struck from a corner to halt West Ham’s recent revival.
“I heard now about the handball. I thought he just fell on the ball but I can see why Moyesie would think different,” said Reds boss Jurgen Klopp, whose side climbed to sixth.
“I liked the performance a lot. Parts of the first half we were exceptional. We made one mistake and they scored a great goal, what a screamer. But we stayed calm and scored our screamer.
“Second half I liked as well. We had to dig in deep because of the physicality of West Ham. I would have liked the game if it was a draw. We won so that makes it the perfect night for us.”