Gary Neville bizarre claim about West Ham’s penalty.

Controversial decisions have always been a massive talking point of football, but they’ve become more prevalent since the introduction of VAR. While some teams usually feel hard done by, the decisions do occasionally go in their favour.

West Ham are one of the worst affected teams when it comes to points being dropped due to VAR going against them, but their penalty against Manchester United is extremely controversial.

Although there is certainly contact, it is a soft one. Nonetheless, some Manchester United fans have been acting like it’s the worst decision of all time – West Ham fans can name plenty that have gone against them that are worse.

Former United defender Gary Neville has suggested on his podcast that the referee was perhaps scared to not give then penalty after being sent to the monitor. “It’s not right that one,” he began. “Every team gets a bad decision but that wasn’t right.”

“The interesting thing was he must have watched it eight times when he went to the monitor. I’m screaming at the TV ‘he doesn’t think it’s a penalty’ but then he overturns his original decision.”

“I think the pressure maybe of being sent over to the screen by Michael Oliver, a dominant referee, no-one likes to upset their superiors. I’m not sure David Coote was anywhere near thinking it was a penalty, and it was a big shock.”

The idea that a referee would give a penalty because he’s scared of a colleague is frankly laughable. If the Premier League was to be biassed towards anyone, surely it would be to the team that makes them more money than anyone else: Manchester United. It’s bold of Neville to assume he can read the psyche of a referee, it’s even bolder to to put his assessment out in the public domain with no evidence.