David Moyes rues 'soft' refereeing with West Ham facing uphill task in Europa League
- Planet Sport writer
- 8 April 2022
West Ham have it all to do in the second leg against Lyon after a frustrating night at the London Stadium.
David Moyes said he felt his side were hard done by after a red card to Aaron Cresswell contributed to a 1-1 Europa League draw with Lyon.
It was the Hammers' first European quarter-final for 41 years, but they were always up against it after Cresswell was given his marching orders for a first-half foul on Moussa Dembele.
West Ham still took the lead afterwards courtesy of Jarrod Bowen, but Tanguy Ndombele, who is on loan from Tottenham, grabbed what could be a vital goal for Lyon in the context of the tie.
Moyes, though, believed the officials got the key decision wrong in sending off Cresswell, particularly given Bowen appeared to be fouled moments before.
"The only thing I'm going to say is there was a tackle on Bowen which was a foul. It was the same phase of play as the red card, and I would have expected VAR to do something about it.
"I'm certainly not going to talk about the referee, not at all.
"It was not a good performance by us but it was a resilient performance in the second half with 10 men.
"We didn't have much of the ball in the second half. Technically they were very good, but we defended well and made it hard for them."
Moyes was generally disappointed with the ref, who he believes was too whistle happy and eager to give what he described as "soft" free-kicks.
However, he insists the tie is far from over despite Lyon earning a slender first-leg advantage.
"I think the refs we have had have been good and allowed the game to flow. But this game never got the chance to flow.
"We've got a really difficult game to come, but we expected that. The first leg is always difficult and hard to get a defining result.
"The game is very much all to play for, at half-time I would have taken that."
