West Ham manager David Moyes has criticised Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale for his “reckless challenge” on Jarrod Bowen during the Hammers’ 2-1 defeat to the Gunners yesterday.

Remarkably, Bowen was booked for simulation despite having to avoid a dangerous tackle from Ramsdale. Moyes feels that things would have been different if Bowen had decided to leave his leg in for Ramsdale to make contact with:

“I don’t ever want my players to dive. I just don’t really believe in it. I think the game is hard enough. I don’t want them to do that. I think Jarrod could just have left his leg there, and kept going into the goalkeeper. Easy. And maybe he should have.”

“It was a reckless challenge, no matter what. But the goalkeeper, the only thing that went for him in the clash was that there was no contact. You can’t do much about it – but I think Jarrod could probably have kept his foot in it, and then we might have had a different situation.”

On first viewing, it did look as though Ramsdale had taken out Bowen but, after seeing the replay, there was clearly no contact between the two players.

However, that doesn’t mean it was a dive. The challenge could have left Bowen with a serious injury if he hadn’t moved out of the way. The incident could have swung proceedings in the match if things had gone in West Ham’s favour but VAR kept with Mike Dean’s on-field decision.

It was not the only questionable refereeing decision during the game either, with Moyes believing that Rob Holding handled the ball in the build-up to Gabriel’s winner. The Irons certainly didn’t get the rub of the green on the day.