Newcastle United latest news: Aston Villa’s Marco Bizot has issued an apology following his red card at Villa Park on Saturday evening.
Aston Villa goalkeeper Marco Bizot has issued an apology to Aston Villa fans following his red card against Newcastle United on Saturday.
Bizot was sent off by Chris Kavanagh just before half-time at Villa Park for bringing down Jacob Murphy near the halfway line. Bizot, who has acted as Emi Martinez’s deputy for much of the season, was dismissed for denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
Villa were forced to play the entire second half with ten men and were unable to hold onto the one-goal lead they had taken in the first period following Tammy Abraham’s early strike. Goals from Sandro Tonali and Nick Woltemade past Martinez sealed the win for Eddie Howe’s side and their place in the Fifth Round of the FA Cup.
Taking to Instagram on Wednesday morning, Bizot issued an apology following that red card. He wrote: ‘I needed a few days to reflect and reset. I want to apologize for my red card and the impact it had on the team and the fans. I understand that my action put the team in a difficult position. Need to keep going and keep working hard. UTV.’
Bizot will now serve a one-match suspension following that red card and will therefore miss Villa’s game against Leeds United on Saturday.
PGMOL make Chris Kavanagh decision
Whilst few debated whether Bizot’s red card was the correct decision or not, there were a number of other controversial calls that made the headlines. In particular, the awarding of a free-kick for handball against Lucas Digne, despite the Frenchman clearly being inside the penalty area when committing the offence, was slammed by pundits post-match with Wayne Rooney describing it as ‘one of the worst decisions’ he’d ever seen in football.
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The PGMOL have since revealed that Kavanagh, the man in the middle on Saturday, and his assistant Nick Greenhalgh, who failed to spot Abraham was in an offside position before netting the opener and was the closest official to the Digne handball, have not been appointed to Premier League matches this weekend.
After Saturday evening’s 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 responded. “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, it 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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