Manchester United legend Rio Ferdinand and Chelsea legend Joe Cole have questioned Graham Potter’s handling of the handball drama in Chelsea’s draw at West Ham, accusing the manager of showing a lack of experience.

Tomas Soucek blocked a Conor Gallagher’s shot with his hands in the 89th minute with the scores at 1-1 but the referee dismissed Chelsea’s penalty appeal.

Speaking to BT Sport after the match, Potter said  it “looked it” when asked if it was a handball but refused to dwell on the incident, adding: “These are the little things you need to go in your favour and at the moment they are not so that’s life there is nothing to complain about.”

Ferdinand told BT Sport: “It comes with experience, if you look at a Pep Guardiola or Klopp or Mourinho in years gone by at Chelsea, Mourinho would have been out there in the presser tomorrow and that would’ve been the story, the back page would’ve been Mourinho slams VAR and takes the focus off what happens on the pitch.

“There were some bits that you could improve on with Chelsea but that would not be the focus, it probably will be now… the influx of players, the money spent but you can negate that by controlling the narrative in that presser there.”

“If he had someone in his staff who has been at that level and managed at that level… you need to cause a bit of an uproar because it does two things,” Joe Cole added.

“It deflects from the bad elements of your performance but it puts it on VAR. It cost Chelsea a chance of winning the game there through no fault of your own.

“You can dissect the performance of your team on Monday morning but if I was advising him now I’d say come out and make a thing of it.

“Make the Chelsea fans come out of here thinking you’re hard done by, instead of feeling why didn’t we beat West Ham. That’s a little bit of inexperience.”