Eddie Howe, Manager of Newcastle United, reacts during the Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Newcastle United at Villa Park on February 14, 2026 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images)placeholder image
Eddie Howe, Manager of Newcastle United, reacts during the Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Newcastle United at Villa Park on February 14, 2026 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Newcastle United were on the wrong end of some poor officiating during their 3-1 FA Cup win at Aston Villa.
A series of errors by referee Chris Kavanagh & co started in the 14th minute when Tammy Abraham gave Villa the lead. Replays showed the striker was in an offside position when he received the ball from Douglas Luiz but with no VAR in operation, the goal stood.
Harvey Barnes and Lewis Hall then had legitimate penalty appeals turned down, while Lucas Digne was fortunate to only see yellow for a late challenge on Jacob Murphy.
Villa were eventually reduced to 10 men in first-half stoppage time when goalkeeper Marco Bizot was shown a straight red card for a high challenge on Murphy as he raced through on goal.
If United thought the bad officiating was left in the first half, they were to wrongly mistaken. Kieran Trippier’s cross hit the arm of Digne inside the box but the officials instead awarded a free-kick.
Fortunately, justice was served as Trippier’s resulting free-kick was cleared into the path of Sandro Tonali, whose shot deflected off Luiz and past substitute goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez.
Tonali then made it 2-1 from a similar position with a a drilled effort into the bottom left corner. Nick Woltemade then made sure of the win in the closing stages with his first goal since December.
Eddie Howe reflects on Newcastle United’s win v Aston Villa & poor officiating
Reflecting on an eventful evening, Howe said: “Yeah, that was certainly a tough first half for us. Obviously we got the benefit of replays on the bench and you can see what's right and what's wrong and we felt really aggrieved in that first period that every decision seemed like it was going against us.
“The officials don't make any decision on purpose, it's what they think at the time, but without VAR I thought there was a lot of errors today.
“The game moves at a very quick speed and I think the referees and officials are making honest decisions but they've got them wrong on more than one occasion against us, and unfortunately for us, it was sort of building up negatively for us.
“But I thought the players did really well to control their emotions, to stay calm, not let it affect our performance negatively and that's not easy to do in that situation where you feel aggrieved.
“So I think that certainly helped our performance in the second half.”
Eddie Howe: Are you trying to get me in trouble?
Wayne Rooney, on BBC punditry duty, described the decision to award a free-kick instead of a penalty when the ball hit Digne’s arm as “one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in football”.
When that was put to Howe, he smiled and said: “You trying to get me in trouble? It sounds like you are!
“Yeah, I mean, of course I felt the same in that moment, but once the decision's made and it seemed like there was no way back, there's nothing you can do, you've got to move on quite quickly, although all through that half it seemed like I was debating a refereeing decision, that's not me, I don't do that, but I felt incensed that there were so many going against us.”
Howe added: “I think the players get used to it just like the officials do and you're expecting as soon as the goal goes in against us, I know there's no VAR tonight, but you're expecting someone's got to look at that because it's offside and you know then it's not going to happen.
“I thought the players did really well, led by Kieran the captain, Kieran Trigger, I thought was excellent in terms of calming us down, speaking to the referee himself, speaking in a diplomatic way where he's not going to help other players in our team lose their focus or lose their heads because the worst thing we could have done then is make it worse and get a red card ourselves, so I think the players deserve a lot of credit for our professionalism and respect that we showed the officials.”
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