An excellent second-half performance saw West Ham come back from 2-0 against Burnley, but the Hammers were unlucky to not walk away with all three points.

Much like their trip to Freiburg, West Ham had to suffer through another frustrating match against Burnley. Not taking their chances and infuriating officiating meant the Hammers were unable to win the game but their brilliant turn around after the break was enough to earn a draw.

For much of the first-half though, West Ham were second best. Vincent Kompany’s side were passing the ball with real conviction while David Moyes’ looked sluggish and uninspired.

Following some woeful defending, David Datro Fofana opened the scoring with a wonderful strike from 20 yards out into the top corner. Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse for West Ham as a Mavropanos own goal doubled the visitors lead just before half-time.

Thankfully, Moyes changes and team talk made a massive impact as his side came out all guns blazing and Lucas Paqueta weaved through the Claret’s defence to pull a goal back just a minute after the restart.

Over the course of the second-half West Ham would go on to create a number of chances, with the best one coming from Mohammed Kudus who created space inside the box for himself, but he managed to hit it over the bar from close range.

In the 85th minute, Danny Ings found the back of the net but VAR overturned the goal due to an offside from Michael Antonio. The decision has left fans baffled though because, as far as anyone can see, it wasn’t offside.

The drama continued, as Ings once again scored with this one counting. The striker flicked the ball up while facing away from goal and hit it beautifully on the volley to bring the hosts level in the 91st minute. 

Just before the end of the match, there were massive appeals for a penalty as Berge bounced the ball up with both arms but, yet again, the decision went against West Ham. The fact it was not even looked at by VAR makes it worse than the Freiburg decision.

In the space of three days, abysmal refereeing has potentially defined our Irons season. However, as much as they were awful decisions, you can not look past the fact that a team like West Ham should never be putting in a first-half performance like they did. Going 2-0 down to Burnley is worrying enough, but them deserving it is even worse. 

If the players perform like they did in second 45 minutes, there is no reason they can not get back to winning ways – just do not let the poor officiating take away from the woeful first-half.