That second half of the Leicester City/West Ham game went through all the ups and downs a team would experience in a season in about 45 minutes. Red cards, penalties, non penalties and golazos headlined this game that somehow ended in a 2-2 draw.
The craziness started in the 56th minute as Jamie Vardy received his second yellow card for diving and was sent off, leaving Leicester to have to defend a 1-0 lead while down a man for 35 minutes. Surely a controversial play, opinion was divided as to whether this was a penalty or a dive. To me, while there was contact, Vardy’s bellyflop was a bit too much embellishment and earned his sending off.
Leicester would hold West Ham off for a while but in the 84th minute, Andy Carroll scored after a penalty after a Wes Morgan push on a corner kick prompted a penalty.
Then things really went off the rails. After trying to get through the shock of allowing the equalizer, West Ham took the lead. Aaron Cresswell grabbed the lead for West Ham with a thunderous golazo right inside the box.
Then Leicester was furious they didn’t get a penalty in the 90th minute as Angelo Ogbonna was holding Robert Huth on the free kick. This led into another issue soccer referees have to face. All of these calls, while if it should or shouldn’t have been called, were at least debatable. While this was debatable too, it does lead into Moss being inconsistent in his calls. If the Morgan push was considered a penalty, surely the Ogbonna hold should be a penalty too. Either call both as penalties or not but doing one and not the other is inconsistent.
Then, to make matters worse, Leicester actually did win a penalty as Jeffrey Schlupp went down in the box. But while that was a penalty, that appeared as if that was less likely to be a penalty than Ogbonna’s hold just minutes before. Some may say it’s to correct a blown call but two wrongs don’t make a right. While exciting, the referees decisions turned the game into a bit of a shambles.
Anyway, the game ended 2-2 and while it would seem Leicester had the win and then was all but certain to lose, they get a point and go eight points clear of Tottenham with just four games to play. Tottenham play Stoke Monday so that margin could go to five points after Monday.
