Garth Crooks claims West Ham star Aaron Cresswell is owed an apology

Follow us on Google Discover

The pundit included the West Ham United defender in his Team of the Week.

West Ham United’s Aaron Cresswell is shown a red card by referee Martin Atkinson

Garth Crooks has praised Aaron Cresswell’s performance in West Ham United’s narrow win over Crystal Palace at the weekend and insisted that the left-back deserves an apology from the referee, BBC Sport reports.

Cresswell was making his first appearance of the campaign at Selhurst Park after recovering from an injury that he sustained in pre-season.

West Ham’s Aaron Cresswell in action with Crystal Palace’s James McArthur

And he made an immediate impact as it was his cross that led to Manuel Lanzini’s winner which handed the Hammers their first victory in the league since August and moved them out of the bottom three.

However, Cresswell did not see the game out as he was controversially sent off following two yellow cards. The first came when the defender was deemed to have dived when he went down inside the Palace box while the second card came when the referee judged that he had blocked Wilfried Zaha off as the winger made a run down the line.

West Ham United’s Manuel Lanzini celebrates scoring their first goal with Aaron Cresswell

But after including the Irons full-back in his Team of the Week, Crooks hit out at both decisions made by the official.

“His ball for team-mate Manuel Lanzini to score was of the highest quality and further indication of what he can produce,” he told BBC Sport.

“However, what then followed was a travesty. Referee Atkinson made two of the worst decisions I have seen in a long time.

“His first error was the yellow card given to Cresswell for diving when the full-back was clearly tripped in the box. Atkinson then went on to compound the mistake 51 seconds later by giving Cresswell a second yellow for putting an arm across Wilfried Zaha, even though the defender was legitimately making life difficult for the Palace winger.

West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic

“What was Cresswell supposed to do? Give Zaha directions? Atkinson owes Cresswell a public apology for the first caution and should have the decency to rescind the booking for diving when the player clearly did not.”

Unfortunately for Bilic, the nature of the dismissal means that Cresswell will have no chance to appeal the decision, and will thus miss the home game against Sunderland on Saturday.

But the West Ham boss will also be taking plenty of positives from how the former Ipswich man got on in his first game back, and may appreciate the fact that he will be fresh for the run of seven games that follows the clash against the Black Cats, which will see them come up against six of the current top seven in the Premier League.