By Louis Nixon

Nuno Espirito Santo, after the game against Brighton, went into the press conferences in disbelief after not coming away from the Amex with all three points. 

The game kicked off with an interesting line-up, which left many shocked, but it was anticipated that it was due to the players needing a rest and not wanting to overwork certain individuals, such as Potts & Magassa. 

Despite the intriguing line-up, the Hammers fought their way to what they thought would be three points, but all would be taken away through a VAR controversy which saw two incidents, the first being an overhead kick which clipped the side of Mavropanos’ face, and the second and most talked about point being the handball incident with Rutter. 

The ball clipped the thigh of Rutter before the ball directly bounced on his arm, which eventually would lead to the ball being placed in the back of the net.

VAR has since claimed that it was deemed understandable given that his “arm was in a natural position and he did not deliberately handle the ball”, which icould be deemed understandable.

However, it’s totally ludicrous seeing as they, the Premier League Match Centre, go on to add that “The contact with the arm was not immediately prior to him scoring” which incidcates that IF it had lead to him scoring it would’ve been dissalowed… subsequently meaning it was a handball but that could only vary due to the outcome of the touch! That is simply comical from the officials.

After the draw had been settled, Nuno was asked, “Is it cruel not to get anything from today?” to which the Portuguese manager responded with an unenthusiastic “Yep.” Which saw him simply add, “It’s a handball, isn’t it?”

Nuno firmly believes it was a handball but believed that “there was no need to speak to him” [The Referee], this only likely being due to the fact that he cannot afford a suspension for the upcoming games against Aston Villa and so forth, so he likely decided to bite his lip. 

Our Goalkeeper coach, after the match, also ran onto the pitch to complain as to why the overhead kick on Mavropanos hadn’t been reviewed, demonstrating the tensions the decision caused, another one which seems inevitable that the club will receive a lacklustre apology from the authorities about. 

Nuno summed it up by saying, “It was really hard to take. Especially after the hard work from the boys and the support from our fans that make us feel like we were in London. This game meant a lot to us and it’s hard to take to go back to London with a point.”