Gary Neville slams VAR’s Chelsea decisions as two calls leave Graham Potter furious

Chelsea prevailed over West Ham in the Premier League but were perhaps fortunate that Pedro Neto’s equalising goal was awarded at Stamford Bridge after a foul on Jarrod Bowen was overlooked

Gary Neville has slammed VAR’S decision not to intervene during Chelsea’s win over West Ham on Monday evening.

The former Manchester United captain believes Graham Potter and his team should be furious over the decision not to rule out the Blues’ equalising goal. Enzo Maresca’s side ultimately won the match 2-1.

Jarrod Bowen, back from injury, had fired the Irons into the lead at Stamford Bridge but Pedro Neto quickly provided a leveller after entering the field as substitutes. The winger’s effort was looked at by VAR in the aftermath before being confirmed as a goal, but a foul on Bowen appeared to be overlooked.

Neville was disappointed that the Levi Colwill challenge was not seen by referee Stuart Attwell. The defender’s intervention was not deemed in Chelsea’s attacking phase but probably should have been picked during live play.

Speaking on Sky Sports after the game, Neville said: “I’d be furious if I were West Ham as the referee and assistants should be spotting that. I think Levi Colwill fouled Jarrod Bowen, he just stepped across him. It was an obvious foul.”

Potter, making his return to Chelsea after being sacked by the club almost two years ago, felt hard done by. The ex-Brighton coach believes Bowen was fouled, and also highlighted how tight an offside call must have been on Marc Guiu for the VAR assessment to have taken so long.

VAR had been unable to judge whether Guiu touched the ball.

“We felt unlucky with the first goal,” he said. “We felt it was a foul on Jarrod. I haven’t seen it back (the Guiu offside call). It took that long, it must have been tight.

“The second one is a deflection. We have to focus on what we did well and the spirit and performance. Our supporters appreciated the performance of the team. You need a bit of luck. We felt unfortunate with the lead-up to the first goal. It wasn’t to be.

“You look at the second half. They had to make some substitutions, the first goal was a bit of a turning point and we felt it was a foul, you need those things to go your way. We were doing well but we couldn’t quite hang on and we had a real big chance at the end to take a point.”

Goalscorer Bowen was able to retain some positivity however.

“A lot of different positive things, we’ve got players coming back from injury, performances have been a lot better since the new manager has come in,” he said. “It’s an exciting time to be coming back into the squad.”

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