Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag applauds fans after the match
Manchester United fans may well be fuming with VAR as it failed to spot the ball seemingly going out of play before the goal they conceded last night.
The Lowdown: Man United have an elite mentality
After an emotional game on Sunday at Wembley which saw Man United lift their first piece of silverware in six years, many may well have doubted if they could keep up their good momentum and form in the FA Cup last night.
The Man United players certainly proved they are capable of competing on multiple fronts as they won 3-1 at home to Premier League opposition West Ham last night, despite trailing for a decent chunk of the match.
While the scoreline looks as though the Red Devils breezed past West Ham, that certainly wasn’t the case with the last two goals coming inside the game’s final five minutes of normal time.
The Latest: It could have been a lot easier for Man United
It will have been a shock to the system for Man United to go 1-0 down at Old Trafford and that scenario probably shouldn’t have played out as an image shows Tomas Soucek had dragged and stopped the ball out of play minutes prior to Said Benrahma’s strike.
A lot of players appealed immediately after Benrahma struck past David de Gea thinking they had seen the ball clearly go out of play, however, both Michael Salisbury and the VAR team thought the Czech republic international had kept the ball in bounds.
The Verdict: Man United were hard done by
Of course, the one thing that perhaps works in West Ham’s favour here is the fact that the original decision was given their way, which made it harder for VAR to prove that 100% of the ball was out of play. But, in our eyes, the image shows that the ball is out of play and the only reason why VAR wouldn’t rule it out is if they’d seen a different angle from perhaps behind Casemiro that shows the ball was in, but the question would be as to why this wasn’t showcased to the watching fans on ITV last night.
While this incident didn’t end up making a difference to the outcome of the game, the fact that Man United were having to push so hard for an equalising goal and then an eventual winner so late out may have been avoided had this been picked up by VAR.
If Man United had kept the scoreline at 0-0 and then took the lead as they did later in the second half, then Erik ten Hag could’ve taken off some first-team players such as Bruno Fernandes and handed them a rest.
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