11 February 2023 , 17:55
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West Ham's official twitter account has poked fun at Chelsea and the controversial decision not to award the Blues a penalty during the 1-1 draw between the two sides on Saturday afternoon.
Late on in the clash at the London Stadium, Graham Potter's side were left furious over the fact they weren't awarded a spot-kick after what looked a certain handball from Hammers midfielder Tomas Soucek. Conor Gallagher's effort seemed to take a clear deflection off of Soucek's hand on the way into Lukas Fabianski's grasp.
As a result, the Chelsea players swarmed Craig Pawson but he was unmoved. While the incident was subject to a VAR check, the officials at Stockley Park didn't see anything in the replays they thought was worth overturning.
Chelsea's social media team made sure their feelings on Pawson's call were clear, as they sarcastically tweeted "Soucek makes a great save from Conor Gallagher."
Quick to issue a response of their own, West Ham quoted the tweet from Chelsea's account with an interview clip from Soucek discussing the moment. The Czech Republic international has a smile on his face as he joked: "Haha, my father was a goalkeeper so..."
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West Ham came away from the tie certainly the happier of the two sides with a point, former Chelsea man Emerson Palmieri cancelling out Joao Felix's first-half opener for the Blues.
Conor Gallagher's strike seemed to hit Tomas Soucek's hand (BT Sport)HAVE YOUR SAY! Should Chelsea have been given a penalty against West Ham? Comment below
Soucek had thought he'd bagged his side a late winner with minutes to spare after he reacted quickest to tap home after Kepa Arrizabalaga palmed Declan Rice's header into danger, but VAR did help Chelsea this time as it spotted how Rice was actually in an offside position when he made contact with the ball.
Potter addressed the moment during his post-match media duties, where he made the same quip as the Chelsea twitter account.
"It was a good save," he added. "You need your goalkeeper sometimes to give you the points. It looks like one of those that if it was given it wouldn’t have been overturned, but obviously it wasn’t given.
"You have to earn your luck. We can’t complain or wait for luck to turn for us, we have to keep working. It looked quite a handball and, like I said, I didn’t know Tomas could get down so easily and save like that."
The result offers no respite in the mounting pressure on Potter, who is expected to turn things around and fast given the Blues spent £323million last month on bolstering the squad with a load of new additions.
However, he remained upbeat as he claimed: "I felt today was a step forward, we’ve had a good training week, but when it’s not reflected in three points there’s always stuff you can do better."