West Ham’s Taty Castellanos accused of spitting at Millwall’s Filip Marschall

West Ham striker Taty Castellanos was accused of spitting at Millwall goalkeeper Filip Marschall during the heated 2-2 derby draw at The Den.

Marschall lodged a complaint with the match officials, including Premier League referee Paul Tierney, after the incident in the 65th minute.

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

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

Lions boss Alex Neil said: “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.

“I’d be extremely surprised if Filip’s made an accusation and nothing’s happened. But that’s not really for me to deal with, I’m sure the authorities will deal with it.

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

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

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.

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

“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.”

It was a distasteful twist in an otherwise engaging reunion of two fierce rivals, their first meeting in nearly 15 years.

The Lions were leading at half-time through goals from Caleb Taylor and Camiel Neghli, with West Ham wilting inside a gloriously hostile Den.

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

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

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

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

Neil has been dealing with a host of injuries so it was little surprise to see the hosts tire towards the end.

“Mixed emotions,” he said. “Unbelievable effort from the players, but I thought we ran out of steam as the game wore on. We had a lack of options and freshness.

“We were 2-0 up and it probably should have been more. We’re disappointed, but it’s funny how football works.

“If we’d scored a second goal late on I think we’d be buzzing. The atmosphere was electric and the fans were brilliant. I’m disappointed for them.”