Sunday 14 December 2014 07:20, UK
West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce criticised referee Phil Dowd and his assistants for awarding the penalty that denied his side victory in a 1-1 draw against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.
The hosts took the lead after 22 minutes through a Jordi Gomez spot-kick after Adam Johnson had gone to ground under a light challenge from James Tomkins.
West Ham equalised through Stewart Downing’s deflected shot, but couldn’t force a winner and consequently missed the chance to climb to third in the Premier League.
“No, I’m not [happy],” Allardyce told Sky Sports. “We might have been celebrating three points here, with the fact that the penalty decision is the wrong one.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about the fact that he [Johnson] took a dive. It has not been given by Phil Dowd because he can’t see it - there are three players in front of him - so it had to be the assistant referee, who, unfortunately for us, has got a decision horribly wrong.
“Would we have won the game 1-0 if that hadn’t have happened? Who knows?”
Sunderland had a second claim for a penalty in the second half, when Winston Reid handled a cross that bounced up on to his arm.
This time Dowd waved play on, and Allardyce thought it was the right decision.
“Handballs have to be intentional,” he added. “It says in the rules that if you are going to handle the ball, it has to be hand to ball, not ball to hand.
“When a ball comes through and bounces and hits you on the arm, it’s not a handball in the interpretation of the rules.”
West Ham are now unbeaten in four matches and, despite his disappointment at the result at the Stadium of Light, Allardyce was happy to see his team’s high level of performance continue.
“Our overall performance was excellent,” he said. “We came here to attack and we attacked constantly. We made enough chances in the first 20-25 minutes to win two games but never converted them.
“We left the back door open occasionally because we were attacking so much and trying to get the winner, which gave Sunderland a couple of chances, but our goalkeeper has had little to do.
“Performance-wise it was very good, but result-wise we are slightly disappointed because of the circumstances it has ended up being a draw.”
