Daniel Farke was seething at the crucial calls that went against Norwich City in a 2-0 Premier League defeat to West Ham.

Christoph Zimmermann left the stadium on crutches with his right foot in a protective boot as he headed to hospital for scans on the ankle injury suffered in a lunging first half challenge from West Ham striker Sebastien Haller, that went unpunished by the officials.

Haller opened the scoring three minutes later, guiding home Arthur Masuaku’s cross after the hobbling Zimmermann was unable to cut out the delivery.

Farke was also unhappy an alleged elbow from Andriy Yarmolenko on Tom Trybull only earned a lecture from the referee prior to the interval. Yarmolenko lashed home a second half volley to seal the Hammers’ win.

“I am not sitting here crying for red cards, we will be self-critical and look at what we could do better, but in crucial moments no fouls are given,” said Farke. “My feeling is we dominated possession in the first 20 minutes. Only one team playing in the other side’s half, one team creating chances. Then the other team need to do something. Now I am not sitting here demanding red cards but one thing is for sure, there was a tackle against my centre back and the ball was three yards away. There was no red card, no yellow card, not even a free kick. The outcome is my centre back is injured in this scene.

“Then two minutes later we were not able to substitute him. They counter, my centre back is not able to sprint back and he is one yard too late to block the cross and the player who made the tackle when the ball was three yards away rewards himself. It changes the whole game.

“I am not saying the intention was to injure my player but if we play by the rules, we must judge by the rules. It is not up to me, the opponent or the supporters to judge. We just played on.

“My player is on the way to hospital, their player is on the shoulder of his team mates. I already had two centre backs injured before the game, so I have to bring a holding midfielder into this position and he adapted well. When my leader, my captain has to go out it influences the game.

“You can speak about the 2-0, but there was a first half incident with the player who scored when my player was elbowed. The referee even spoke to him and his captain and warned him but he did not react again in this manner. This player scores the second goal. So VAR is probably not allowed to over-rule the referee but this demonstrates VAR is not always able to bring the perfect outcome. And I like VAR.”