David Moyes has claimed Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) is reluctant to engage with managers because so many refereeing decisions this season have been difficult to explain. The Everton manager said he was left “half-choking” when Fulham were awarded what proved to be a match-winning penalty against Nottingham Forest on Monday for Douglas Luiz’s touch on Fulham’s Kevin.
Everton were denied a penalty on Saturday for a similar offence by William Saliba on Thierno Barry during their home defeat by Arsenal. Moyes did not criticise the decision at the time but in light of Fulham’s penalty feels the inconsistency of referees can not be ignored.
“I was half-choking last night when I saw the decision given and ours wasn’t,” said the Everton manager. “It feels as though certain clubs get those decisions and other clubs don’t. We seem to be on the latter side of that.
“There was one earlier in the season at Brentford with [Virgil] van Dijk which was quite similar and I think eventually it was given. We are disappointed it wasn’t given on the night and we are looking at others which have been.”
Asked whether he intended to present his case to referee chiefs, Moyes said: “I don’t really know. They don’t make it easy whatever you want. They don’t want to have a conversation about it really. They will have [one], but they don’t want to because they’re finding it probably very difficult to explain things.”
Moyes’s concerns are not limited to decisions against his team. He said “the more worrying thing” about Arsenal’s win on Saturday was Sam Barrott, missing the clear handball by Jake O’Brien that produced the decisive penalty, until the video assistant referee recommended a review.
“Surely the on-field referee didn’t need VAR to decide that Jake had his two hands up in the air?” Moyes said. “And that’s me going against my own team. Why did he need to wait on VAR to make that decision? He had to go to the pitchside monitor. What was the linesman doing on the side? The linesman was behind it where he must have seen his arms going up, but he didn’t make the call.
“The point I’m making is that surely they should be making the call. Maybe he didn’t see [William] Saliba kicking, but the consistency comes from those sort of actions – have you seen if he kicked through the back of someone’s leg or he gets there first?
“I don’t want to see soft penalty kicks. I’m not a believer of soft penalty kicks, maybe that was my thinking after the [Arsenal] game, but after what I saw last night, I’m saying: ‘Well, if that’s the way it’s going to be, why are we not getting the same decisions?’”
