Referee Chris Kavanagh has been omitted from this weekend’s round of Premier League fixtures following a series of errors in Newcastle United’s FA Cup win at Aston Villa.
Kavanagh and his assistant Nick Greenhalgh have not been appointed for Premier League fixtures this weekend after the officials failed to spot a series of errors without VAR in place.
The linesman, Gary Beswick, has been appointed as assistant for Nottingham Forest against Liverpool on Sunday.
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Greenhalgh failed to call offside for Tammy Abraham’s opening goal while Kavanagh avoided sending off Lucas Digne for a high challenge on Jacob Murphy and failed to award a penalty for handball against Digne in the second half despite the ball clearly being inside the penalty area. Greenhalgh, who also had a good view of Digne’s handball but didn’t overturn the referee’s call.
There were also two further penalty shouts for Newcastle turned down in the first half but ultimately they were able to come out as victors at Villa Park thanks to a second half brace from Sandro Tonali and a late third from Nick Woltemade.
BBC pundit and former England international Wayne Rooney described the awarding of a free-kick rather than a penalty for Digne’s handball as ‘one of the worst’ decisions’ he’s ever seen.
It was the last game Newcastle will play this season without VAR as the technology is used from the fifth round onwards in the FA Cup and is used in every Premier League and Champions League match.
Eddie Howe on referee decisions v Aston Villa
After the win, Eddie Howe was asked about the lack of VAR and the quality of officiating at Villa Park.
“Yeah, that was certainly a tough first half for us,” Howe said. “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 agreed in that first period that every decision seemed like it was going against us.
“The officials don't make any decision on purpose, is what they think at the time, but without VAR I thought there was a lot of errors today.
“Once the decision is made and it seems 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 referee decision. That's not me, I don't do that.
“But I felt that there were so many [decisions] going against us.”
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