West Ham United manager Slaven Bilic has refused to criticise referee Jonathan Moss for his performance during the 2-2 draw with Leicester City this afternoon.
Moss endured an eventful outing at the King Power Stadium, sending Jamie Vardy off for diving before awarding both sides penalties in the final 10 minutes of the match.
Leicester rescued a point when Leonardo Ulloa tucked away his 95th-minute spot kick after Andy Carroll had been adjudged to have fouled Jeffrey Schlupp, but while Bilic does not believe that it was the correct decision, he had sympathy for the referee.
"I'm not eagle-eyed, I'm not an ex-referee, I'm not Howard Webb, I'm a football coach and I don't want to talk about that. On the contrary I would like to say it's hard for him. Not only here but here you have 32,000 people screaming at every contact in the box, every long ball in the box," he told reporters.
"If it's for the home side it's a penalty or handball. If it's in the other box it's cheat, dive or whatever. It's hard, it's extremely hard for him and the game went like crazy and they were losing and so it was extremely hard for him.
"It's easy now to say that the refs shouldn't get influenced by the fans. On paper it is easy to say that. Actually it's real life. Of course it's not a penalty."
West Ham are now winless in their last six matches in all competitions, including four consecutive draws in the Premier League.
Barney Corkhill
