Newcastle United won their FA Cup fourth round clash 3-1 against Aston Villa, but Alan Shearer and Wayne Rooney criticised the officials' decision-making
Alan Shearer has criticised the officials
Alan Shearer has criticised the officials (Image: BBC )
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Alan Shearer has lambasted the match officials following their failure to spot a blatant penalty during Newcastle United's FA Cup fourth-round clash with Aston Villa. The Magpies secured a 3-1 victory over 10-man Villa on Saturday evening, advancing to the fifth round, though much of the post-match conversation centred on a contentious refereeing decision.
Newcastle broke the deadlock in the 63rd minute courtesy of the first of two goals from Sandro Tonali at Villa Park, though this came only after they ought to have been granted a penalty. Villa's left-back Lucas Digne unmistakably touched the ball with his hand inside the penalty area whilst attempting to block a cross, yet referee Chris Kavanagh bewilderingly gave a free-kick just outside the box instead.
With the video assistant referee only being introduced to the FA Cup from the fifth round stage, Kavanagh's mistake stood uncorrected. Newcastle ultimately found the net from the second phase of the awarded free-kick and proceeded to secure a comfortable victory - helped significantly by Marco Bizot's dismissal - though club icon Shearer remained incensed during his BBC studio analysis.
He said: "There is perhaps a small excuse for the referee to not see this - and I'm being kind to him. But there is no excuse whatsoever for the assistant Nick Greenhalgh, who is 10 or 15 yards away and has had an absolute nightmare today.
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"He cost for the offside free-kick (Tammy Abraham's opening goal for Villa) and he's 15 yards away from that. Goodness me! If you ever needed any evidence of the damage VAR has done to the referees, I think today is a great example of that, because these guys, I think, look petrified to make a decision today because they didn't have a comfort blanket.
"And that's the damage it's done to the officials. For me, they're actually getting worse because I really don't think that is a difficult decision at all, in fact it's easy and at this standard, that has to be given.
Lucas Digne was fortunate not to concede a penalty
Lucas Digne was fortunate not to concede a penalty(Image: BBC)
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"There's no excuse for the assistant not to tell his referee that he's got that totally wrong."
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Wayne Rooney subsequently argued it was Greenhalgh who bore the greatest responsibility, as he failed to overrule Kavanagh despite possessing a superior view of the handball incident.
"I think you can be critical of officials, or you can praise them either way. But that decision is one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in football, because at no stage was Digne out of the penalty box," he said.
"I think he's three or four yards inside the penalty box, and the linesman was just in front of us and you can clearly see how much he is inside the penalty box. To not give that decision... The referee blew and he looked like he was talking to someone in his ear, I'm assuming the linesman has given that decision and it's an absolute shocker."
Former Villa forward Dion Dublin added: "For Digne to jump into the ball and still be inside the box when he's jumping is just... I don't know. He'll be embarrassed when he sees that and all the officials know that they've made a blunder. It won't matter now, because Newcastle got the result, but that's poor."
That was not the only controversial refereeing decision that went against Newcastle with Digne surviving a horror tackle on Jacob Murphy and Tammy Abraham's goal being allowed to stand despite seeming to be in an offside position.
A Tonali brace and late Nick Woltemade strike made those errors redundant in the end but there was clear frustration on the pitch and on the bench at some of the officiating throughout the match.
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