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Chris Kavanagh has paid the price for his poor showing in Newcastle United’s FA Cup win at Aston Villa.
With no VAR in operation, Tammy Abraham’s opener for Villa was allowed to stand despite the striker being offside, while the Magpies had two legitimate penalty appeals turned down after Harvey Barnes and Lewis Hall went down in the box.
Lucas Digne was also fortunate to escape with only a yellow card after a late challenge on Jacob Murphy before Kavanagh did eventually reach for his back pocket to send off goalkeeper Marco Bizot after he brought down Murphy.
Wayne Rooney describes decision as one of the worst he’s ever seen
If United thought the officiating drama was first-half only then they sadly mistaken. Kieran Trippier’s cross hit the arm of Digne and despite it clearly being in the box, Kavanagh and his assistant awarded a free-kick.
Former Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney described the decision as the one of the worst he’s ever seen in football.
Rooney told BBC Sport: “That decision is one of the worst decisions I have ever seen in football because at no stage was Digne out of the penalty box,” Rooney said.
“He is three or four yards inside. The linesman is just in front of it and you can clearly see how much he is in the penalty box.
“The referee looked like he blew and looked like he was listening to someone in his ear, so I'm assuming the linesman gave the decision, and it's an absolute shocker.”
Fortunately, justice was served as Tripper’s delivery was cleared in Sandro Tonali’s path, whose shot deflected in off Douglas Luiz. The Italian then made it 2-1 with a stunning low strike before Nick Woltemade made sure of the victory in the 88th minute.
Chris Kavanagh dropped from Premier League matches this weekend
But Kavanagh & co have paid the price. Gary Beswick has been named as an assistant for the Nottingham Forest v Liverpool on Sunday, but Kavanagh and Greenhalgh have not been assigned a game.
The officials were slammed by the likes of Alan Shearer and Rooney, but Eddie Howe managed to stay diplomatic during his post-match press conference.
“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 aggrieved in that first period that every decision seemed like it was going against us. T
“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.”
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