{"id":5337,"date":"2026-01-07T20:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2026-01-07T20:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:06:13","slug":"west-hams-tomas-soucek-criticises-joke-penalty-decision-against-nottingham-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=5337","title":{"rendered":"West Ham’s Tomas Soucek criticises ‘joke’ penalty decision against Nottingham Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"


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West Ham<\/b> midfielder Tomas Soucek said the Premier League has become “like basketball” after his side lost a crucial game against <\/b>Nottingham Forest<\/b> following what he described as a “joke” decision to award their opponents a late penalty.<\/b><\/p>\n

The video assistant referee (VAR) intervened after Hammers goalkeeper Alphonse Areola collided with Morgan Gibbs-White while attempting to get to a cross.<\/p>\n

Soucek, who headed the free-kick clear before it could reach Areola or Gibbs-White, drew comparisons to basketball – a sport in which minimal contact is permitted.<\/p>\n

Gibbs-White’s resulting 89th-minute spot-kick condemned West Ham to a 2-1 defeat which left Nuno Espirito Santo’s side seven points adrift of safety.<\/p>\n

“For me it is a joke. I just saw it again and I think we can have 20 penalties per game if it is like that,” Soucek told Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

“I came to the Premier League because I thought it was the toughest league in the world, and we are all fighters and warriors.<\/p>\n

“But this looks more like basketball when you can’t touch the player. <\/p>\n

“[Areola] is the same in the dressing room. He didn’t know who was fouled. He came for the ball, I think I cleared it and it was already out. We didn’t know why there was VAR and then the penalty, so it was tough for all of us.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek said the Premier League has become “like basketball” after his side lost a crucial game against Nottingham Forest following what he described as a “joke” decision to award their opponents a late penalty. The video assistant referee (VAR) intervened after Hammers goalkeeper Alphonse Areola collided with Morgan Gibbs-White while attempting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}