MICHAIL ANTONIO wasn’t going to let a tight VAR decision on Saturday ruin his sense of humour – mocking the handball call with a cheeky picture.
Video referees deemed the West Ham forward’s goal against Southampton to be illegal because the ball brushed his arm as he controlled it.
As per the recently imposed laws on goalscoring situations, even the slightest instance of handball will lead to it being chalked off.
And Antonio joked that there may be an obvious reason why he got pulled up.
Posting on Instagram an image of himself with huge emoji hands, he wrote: “These handball decisions are killing me, can’t work out why it keeps happening.”
Referee Martin Atkinson initially allowed the goal to stand as the Hammers star held off his marker and fired his shot into the bottom corner.
But the obligatory VAR check drew up a discrepancy that on-pitch officials would have never noticed.
It wasn’t the first time Antonio found himself unhappy with the replay system after an early penalty check went against the Hammers, despite the 29-year-old claiming afterwards he was caught “in a headlock”.
Soon after that decision, West Ham went 1-0 up and held on to secure three vital points at St Mary’s.
Sebastian Haller produced a smart half-volley to open the scoring in the first-half before Southampton flustered in their attempts to get an equaliser.
It eased the pressure on Manuel Pellegrini after last week’s collapse against Arsenal and his side now sit 15th ahead of a week off.
Discussions have been had over possible changes to VAR
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
