West Ham must stop seeing red, insists James Tomkins

Sam Allardyce's team remain one point ahead of Southampton with a game in hand following this turbulent draw last night but were reduced to 10 men for the second successive match.

Matt Taylor joins captain Kevin Nolan on the sidelines with a three-match ban for pushing Southampton striker Billy Sharp after West Ham were awarded a 21st-minute penalty.

Tomkins said: "When the referee awarded the penalty I saw Matt running over and raising his arms. You can't do that these days because you give the referee a problem and a red card was always going to happen.

"The lad thought Mark Noble dived for the penalty and was in his face, just winding up the situation. He shouldn't have done that but our players ran over. We need to keep our heads at times. We had a couple of yellow cards after the sending-off and I was afraid we could lose another player. It was tough enough with 10 men."

Noble scored the penalty - his seventh goal of the season - and West Ham held out until the 75th minute when Jos Hooiveld equalised from close range.

Referee Lee Probert angered West Ham by missing two strong penalty claims for handball against Rickie Lambert and Hooiveld in the opening 15 minutes.

Defender Tomkins said: "One of the penalty shouts came from a header of mine from a corner. I clearly saw their guy palm the ball. I've seen the other one too and it's disappointing the referee didn't see either of them but saw the incident which led to the red card."

Allardyce was equally unhappy with the match
official.

"I'm disappointed with Matt raising his hands but it was in the chest, not the face, and they tell me the rule book says if it's in the chest it's only a booking," said the West Ham manager, who was just as incensed over the spot-kicks that weren't given. "I knew they were penalties because everyone in the stadium appealed for them. The second one at least was a sending-off and a penalty while the first was just a penalty. So before Matt had been sent off we could have already won the game had major decisions been made correctly."

Meanwhile, Ravel Morrison, who did not play last night, has been charged by the Football Association over an alleged homophobic remark on Twitter.

The 19-year-old, who joined on transfer deadline day after off-field controversies while at Manchester United, is reported to have made the comment in response to another Twitter user. Morrison has until 4pm on Friday to reply to the charge.