Wolves were comfortably beaten by West Ham United yesterday at the London Stadium – but Ian Wright was not happy with Vladimir Coufal on Match of the Day 2 last night.
Wanderers lost 3-0, turning in one of their worst performances of the season.
Having come into the game with some players suffering from illness, Wolves were all over the place defensively, and couldn’t find a way through West Ham’s backline. It was only the second game this season in the Premier League in which Wolves have failed to score.
Gary O’Neil has plenty to consider ahead of the next game with Chelsea.
That said, he will probably have been cursing his luck once again yesterday, after Vladimir Coufal was not shown a red card for his reckless elbow on Jean-Ricner Bellegarde…
Ian Wright slams ‘pathetic’ Vladimir Coufal for elbow on Jean-Ricner Bellegarde
Most of the analysis last night on Match of the Day 2 was about Lucas Paqueta and how he ripped Wolves apart with his creativity.
But their punditry team did look at the incident which took place just before half-time involving Vladimir Coufal and Jean-Ricner Bellegarde.
The West Ham player caught Bellegarde in the face with an elbow, which led Sky pundit Daniel Sturridge to brand it WWE stuff, and Roy Keane to call him a ‘lucky boy’.
On Match of the Day 2, Wright did not mince his words. He said: “This is pathetic. Gary O’Neil got booked in this game. This guy didn’t even get booked, look at his elbow! How is that not even a booking? Come on, man. It’s ridiculous, it’s ridiculous, that is ridiculous. It’s pointless talking about it really, he can’t win.”
Coufal then planted another reckless challenge on Bellegarde late on in the game, and finally got a yellow card.
After the game, Bellegarde questioned VAR on social media, and admitted he did not ‘understand anything anymore’.
A disgrace
Thankfully this incident is getting a decent amount of coverage, although obviously nothing can be done at this point.
It was just a shocking display of violence from Coufal, who could have done serious damage to Bellegarde flying in like that.
Wolves may not have deserved anything yesterday, but the game could have been completely different had VAR done its job and sent Coufal off.
But once again, the right decision was not reached, and Wolves were unable to come back in the game.