Liverpool ace Virgil Van Dijk was captured doing something before the Jarrod Bowen penalty that will infuriate the West Ham fans.
The Hammers were pinned back for almost the entire first-half against Liverpool.
It was no surprise considering the negative way in which David Moyes set his team up for the match.
Jurgen Klopp’s side took the lead midway through the first-half through a Darwin Nunez header.
West Ham were gifted a great chance to get back in the match though when Jarrod Bowen was brought down inside the box by Joe Gomez just before half-time.
Unfortunately for West Ham though, Jarrod Bowen missed the penalty.
It is interesting to see what Van Dijk was doing before the spot kick was taken though…
Van Dijk captured doing something before Jarrod Bowen penalty that will infuriate West Ham fans
The 25-year-old stepped up and had his penalty saved by Alisson.
It really was too easy for the Brazilian, and Bowen undoubtedly should have made him work a lot harder, that goes without saying.
Before he even took the spot-kick though, Virgil Van Dijk was captured on camera trying to scuff up the penalty spot:
That’s incredibly annoying to see.
I know these things happen but should there not be closer scrutiny on the defenders when a penalty is given to the opposing team?
Perhaps it’s just sour grapes, I don’t know really. And in fairness, there are dark arts to the game that the top teams seem to be so very good at.
The bottom line is that Van Dijk could have easily made a divot in the ground by doing what he did.
Nevertheless, the penalty from Jarrod Bowen was really poor.
It was so easily telegraphed and he should have done a lot better.
We will never know whether Van Dijk’s action previous to the spot-kick actually made any difference though.
It’s just incredibly disappointing that Jarrod Bowen didn’t smash the penalty home. It would have been such a big boost for us heading into the break.
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