Tim Sherwood was critical of Gabriel Magalhães ‘elbow’ on Pablo Fornals during Arsenal’s 2-0 win against West Ham on Wednesday night, as he told Soccer Special on Sky Sports (15/12/21 at 8:15 pm).
The Sky pundit claimed that Gabriel ‘got away with that’ because the West Ham players ‘didn’t make a fuss like the Arsenal players did’ for a previous incident.
There were a number of controversial moments and decisions made during the game, including Arsenal being awarded a questionable penalty in the second half.
Referee Anthony Taylor – backed by VAR – judged that Vladimir Coufal fouled Alexandre Lacazette inside the penalty area.
Not only was the penalty awarded, but Coufal was also shown a second yellow card for his actions, before ex-Gunner Łukasz Fabiański saved Lacazette’s spot-kick.
Coufal was first shown a yellow in the first half for putting his arm across Kieran Tierney, before moments later a similar situation occurred with Gabriel and Fornals.
Sherwood felt that the one involving Gabriel looked ‘more of an elbow’ and VAR should have had a look at it.
“We have seen another elbow in the face,” said Sherwood. “That looked more of an elbow from Gabriel.
“It was on Fornals and the referee just waved it on. Hopefully, VAR look at that.
“West Ham players have not made a fuss like the Arsenal players did and that’s the reason he gets away with that.”
That win was a statement of intent from the Gunners on another off-night for the Hammers who have hit a bit of a slump.
The form of Michail Antonio up top isn’t helping matters because he has lost his spark, touch and goalscoring threat for a number of weeks now.
As a result, they lost fourth spot to Arsenal and the January transfer window needs to come as quick as possible for them.
It’s not a case of replacing players within the squad, but more depth is needed for David Moyes to be able to help a number of his first-team stars.
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