It was a very tight hard-fought game against West Ham yesterday, and although Arsenal won 2-1, the Hammers boss Sam Allardyce believes that his team could easily have won by the same scoreline if it had been a different referee.
First of all Alex Song had a screamer of a goal disallowed very early on in the game, and then Winston Reid fell over in the West Ham box just before half-time, and as he stood up again he tripped Santi Cazorla, a penalty was given and Arsenal were given the all-important opening goal.
“Obviously it was a very poor decision to disallow the goal,” Allardyce said after the game. “If we’d have been allowed that goal, as we should have been, I don’t think we’d have lost to Arsenal here. It would have kicked the lads on and Arsenal would have found it very difficult.”
“I don’t see any real point in confronting a referee and you know you’re 100 per cent right. You don’t get anywhere by telling him how wrong he’s been,” Allardyce continued. “But we’ve ended up losing a game that was a great spectacle.”
It is often said that refereeing decisions even themselves out over the season, and it is a fact that Arsenal have been on the losing end of quite a few dodgy decisions already this season. Perhaps at last a bit of luck is running our way for a change….