Former Premier League referee and PGMOL boss Keith Hackett has had his say on Liverpool being awarded a penalty against West Ham United on Saturday.
The defending Premier League champions started badly, as a goal from Pablo Fornals gave the Hammers an early lead. West Ham looked organised and fought hard for most of the first half, but an incident just before half-time ruined all their hard work.
Arthur Masuaku caught Mohamed Salah inside the box, and the Egyptian went down dramatically. Liverpool were given a penalty and the man who won it scored to level the game at the break.
Salah’s reaction after the tackle caught a lot of attention. West Ham fans were clearly not happy with the decision, and Hackett’s view of the incident will surely not cheer them up.
Hackett: Mohamed Salah dived
The ex-PGMOL boss answered fans’ questions about the incident on Twitter. Hackett tweeted that Liverpool did not deserve a penalty and labelled the incident as ‘an act of simulation’ by Salah.
A late goal by Diogo Jota gave Liverpool all three points, but West Ham would have felt they deserved to take something from the game after their performance. If no penalty was conceded in the first half, the result might well have been a different one, but that wasn’t the case.
Masuaku definitely made contact with Salah’s foot and the Liverpool man had every right to go down. However, his reaction was a bit over the top and that annoyed a lot of people, including Hammers boss David Moyes.
He was quoted by the Liverpool Echo after the game saying: “I don’t think it’s a penalty kick. I think he throws himself to the ground. Arthur stops expecting the referee to do something because of the way he (Salah) threw himself to the ground and it went the other way.”
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