David Moyes was incandescent after seeing his West Ham United team concede a controversial goal in Sunday’s 1-1 Premier League draw at Southampton.
The Hammers were the dominant force at St Mary’s Stadium but were left frustrated by a series of missed opportunities and the circumstances surrounding Romain Perraud’s strike for the Saints.
The Frenchman collected 25 yards out before shooting into the bottom corner via a deflection, but he was only able to do so because Jarrod Bowen’s path to the loose ball was inadvertently impeded by referee Peter Bankes. However, because Bankes touched neither the ball nor Bowen, the goal was allowed to stand, much to Moyes’ dismay.
Earlier, Perraud had also appeared to wrestle Tomáš Souček to the turf while the pair challenged for a West Ham corner, but again the decision did not go the Irons’ way.
To the Hammers’ credit, they shrugged off those setbacks to level through Declan Rice’s pinpoint shot midway through the second half, but could not turn late possession, pressure and a succession of decent chances into a winning goal.
Understandably, the manager was not happy with the way things panned out against the Saints…
We should have won the game, more than anything else, but we didn't.
I wouldn't say that we didn't start well. We started quite well, but we allowed them into the game a little bit.
We allowed [Ché] Adams to bully us, but today was a day when we didn’t have any real central defenders in the game, which gave them a chance to get up the pitch quite quickly and get second balls.
And then they scored a goal which is never a goal because of the referee’s position. The referee blocks Jared Bowen getting to the ball, and it is ridiculous that he doesn't do anything about it. I just cannot understand how that goal can stand.
We played well – the problem was that we didn't hit the target often enough in the first half.
We had good efforts but not on the target. I thought we played well in the second half without making enough clean opportunities for me, even though we did have some.
But it took a great goal from Declan to get us level it we didn't we shouldn't have needed it to do that.
I think we should have been able to score with some of our play and we didn’t do so.
We’re beginning to improve on some aspects.
We’re not going to get it completely right all the time, but we are trying.
Today, not having any centre-halves in the team probably cost us the game because we didn’t have enough toughness at times in the game when they got it up to Adams in the early part. We weren’t physical enough and they got a goal from it.
He can do that, Declan, and I hope he can do it more often.
It’s a really good finish so I’m pleased because he’s a really big player for us so hopefully he can keep adding some goals to it.
I’m more disappointed today because I felt we were done [by decisions that went against us].
It was an incredibly bad decision on Tomáš Souček which should have been a penalty kick and it’s not given and the referee gets in the way for their goal.
We don’t want to blame referees and officials, but sometimes you have to say ‘this was a real problem’. He stopped Jarrod Bowen getting to the ball and they scored from a deflection from that, and I can’t do anything about it and I can’t change it.
