RED-CARDED MOYES RAPS REFEREES AS ‘AVERAGE’ IN THE EUROPA
DAVID MOYES has slammed the standard of officiating in the Europa League following West Ham’s exit on Thursday.
The Hammers boss and left-back Aaron Cresswell were sent off in the second leg of their semi-final with Eintracht Frankfurt.
And captain
Declan Rice faces a UEFA charge for the expletive-laden outburst he aimed at Spanish referee Jesus Gil Manzanoin in the tunnel post-match.
Rice said: “Ref, ref, it’s so poor. All night, it’s so bad. How can you be that bad?”
Moyes (right) was furious with the referee’s performance as well and has vowed to stand by his skipper.
However, it wasn’t only this latest refereeing display that upset the Scot, but much of what had gone before it in the competition as well.
Moyes said: “I don’t think the standard of officiating has been very good.
“In fact, it has been pretty average.
“The Premier League is a better standard but I’ve always said that. If you look at my quotes for a long time regarding referees, certainly from my short spell in Spain, I thought the Premier League referees were far better but I was saying that five or six years ago.
“In the Europa League, there’s part of the game now in terms of the officiating of it that soft free-kicks are acceptable and the game can be stopped.
“And if I’m a paying customer…
“They’re certainly not putting all the time on for stoppages. There’s certainly an awful lot of players going down too easily.
“It used to be that you stopped a game for head knocks – on Thursday it was stopped for a different kind. There were lots of things like that going on but I’m not going to change it.”
One thing Moyes is confident of changing this summer is his squad.
Before today’s clash at Norwich, he said: “A couple of years ago, we had a real good couple of windows where it worked for us.
“We need to try to make that happen
again. We need to try to get a couple of players who can add to the team and give us more players who can play.
“It is easier said than done. It’s easy just to say, ‘We will bring in a few players’.
“You have to get the right ones, the right characters and get everything to fill in and it doesn’t always work that way.
“The team we have had now for two-and-ahalf years has been a great team and we will need to start building on top of that, trying to do more.
“If you don’t, then you stand still and we can’t stand still.
“We are still a side where there is no guarantee
West Ham will continue to finish in the top five or six, not with the money you see teams spending.
“Newcastle are going to come into the mix, Aston Villa are big spenders.
“That is why we are in a great position, considering that we’ve just had 50 or more games.
“Still to be in with a chance of sixth or seventh says a lot.”