That was a frustrating evening for Aston Villa against Juventus.
In the overall picture, things are going well for Aston Villa in the Champions League because they have only been beaten once and they are sitting outside of the top-eight places.
Added to that, Villa have kept four clean sheets, which is pretty impressive given the team’s woes in the Premier League this season – conceded 19 from 12.
The game against Juve was more of a tactical battle, with both teams remaining patient in their shape and also not taking too many risks on the ball.
But, from the get-go, the on-field referee Jesus Gil annoyed and angered the Villa Park crowd. After ten minutes to be exact.
Then two minutes later, the Aston Villa fans were incensed again and then he didn’t help himself, at all!
Youri Tielemans and Leon Bailey were booked for soft fouls. These soft fouls were awarded throughout the match to both teams, that’s not the problem or argument here.
The issue is that Villa were booked straightaway – twice – for their soft fouls, yet a Juventus player wasn’t booked until the 45th minute after their seventh foul.
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What’s worse is that four fouls were awarded to Villa on the edge of the penalty box – all of which equated to one booking for the opposition!
And then there were, at least, three occasions when a Juventus player kicked the ball away after a free-kick for Villa, yet no cards were handed out.
And the Morgan Rogers disallowed goal hasn’t even been mentioned yet!
But Villa fans shouldn’t be surprised because this ref seems to have a history with English teams.
Then West Ham player Declan Rice got banned in 2022 for criticising referee Jesus Gil
West Ham were beaten in the Europa League semi-final in 2022 to Eintracht Frankfurt, with Aaron Cresswell and manager David Moyes getting sent off during the 1-0 second-leg defeat.
Declan Rice was banned for two games by UEFA for his comments towards the match official at the time and how he was ‘so poor’ all night.
As posted by BBC Sport, Rice shouted at the Spanish official about what he really thought about him: “Ref, ref, it’s so poor, all night, it’s so bad.
“How can you be that bad, honestly?”
Match referee Jesus Gil Manzano is surrounded by Juventus players during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 League Phase MD5 match between Aston Vil...
Photo by Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images
Why Youri Tielemans was laughing after John McGinn was fouled
On the field, you probably noticed the players restraining themselves and not getting in the ref’s face for his actions.
That’s probably come from Emery because you then pick up needless yellow cards and he isn’t a fan of that all – imagine if Jose Mourinho was in the dugout!
But, instead of screaming in the ref’s face for his woeful officiating, Youri Tielemans just proceeded to laugh, and rightly so!
As posted by Jacob Tanswell on Twitter, Tielemans just laughed when there was no booking for the Juve player for a foul on McGinn after ‘setting the bar so low’.
“Tielemans laughs as John McGinn wins a foul and no booking is forthcoming for a Juventus player,” wrote Tanswell.
“The referee has set the bar so low with the early Villa bookings that, by those standards, Juventus should have at least had a couple in the book.”
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