West Ham’s Castellanos accused of spitting at Millwall goalkeeper

n n

West Ham striker Taty Castellanos was accused of spitting at Millwall goalkeeper Filip Marschall during a fiery 2-2 London derby draw at the Den on Saturday.

n

Marschall lodged a complaint with the match officials after the incident in the 65th minute of the Championship clash.

n

With West Ham trailing 2-0, Argentinian Castellanos came to close down Marschall as he held on to the ball.

n

The players clashed and Marschall, on his Championship debut, then appeared to point at his shirt, gesturing he had been spat at.

n

“I haven’t asked him about it, but it’s like anything else, I’m sure there’ll be footage of it, or not of it if it didn’t happen,” said Millwall manager Alex Neil.

n

He added: “I didn’t know what had happened, I’d just seen Filip walking out with the ball and thinking, ‘Where’s he going?’

n

“And then the fourth official basically said that there was an accusation of spitting. So, yeah, I don’t know.”

n

Castellanos could face a six-match ban if he is found to have spat at Marschall, which would be a huge blow to West Ham’s promotion bid.

n

Hammers boss Nuno Espirito Santo said: “I’m aware of the allegation, I didn’t see the images, I didn’t speak with Taty.

n

“I cannot go much further on that, I’m sorry. For me to answer that, I have to see it. I’m going to look at the images. I cannot answer.”

n

The allegation was a sour twist to a first meeting between the fierce London rivals in nearly 15 years.

n

Millwall led at half-time through goals from Caleb Taylor and Camiel Neghli.

n

But in a vastly improved second-half display the visitors hit back through Mohamadou Kante and Konstantinos Mavropanos.

n

West Ham looked likeliest to find a winner until last man Kante was sent off for pulling back fellow substitute Kyrell Lisbie as he raced through on goal.

n

“Clearly the first half we didn’t do well in the game, we didn’t start well, we were not precise and lost balls,” said Nuno.

n

“We didn’t deal with the physicality of Millwall, they are so good and so strong.”

n

AFP

n n