Kieran Trippier and Dan Burn of Newcastle United react after referee Chris Kavanagh and assistant referee Nick Greenhalgh failed to award a penalty during the Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Newcastle United on February 14, 2026 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images)placeholder image
Kieran Trippier and Dan Burn of Newcastle United react after referee Chris Kavanagh and assistant referee Nick Greenhalgh failed to award a penalty during the Emirates FA Cup Fourth Round match between Aston Villa and Newcastle United on February 14, 2026 in Birmingham, England. (Photo by Dan Istitene/Getty Images) | Getty Images
Chris Kavanagh & Co made several errors during Newcastle United’s 3-1 FA Cup fourth round win away to Aston Villa.
Chris Kavanagh has been dropped by the Premier League for a second successive week following his awful showing in Newcastle United’s 3-1 FA Cup fourth round win away to Aston Villa.
Kavanagh and his assistant, Nick Greenhalgh, weren’t assigned a Premier League match last weekend after the pair made a series of errors that almost cost Newcastle at Villa Park.
Greenhalgh failed to spot the offside in the build-up to Tammy Abraham’s opener and didn’t intervene when Kavanagh awarded a free-kick instead of a penalty after Kieran Trippier’s cross clearly hit Lucas Digne’s arm in the box.
Manchester United and England legend Wayne Rooney described the decision as one of the worst he’s seen in football. Fortunately, the resulting free-kick did lead to United’s equaliser as Sandro Tonali’s shot deflected in off Douglas Luiz.
Chris Kavanagh dropped by the Premier League again
Greenhalgh has again been overlooked for Premier League duty this weekend, while Kavangah is only named as the fourth official for Liverpool’s match at home to West Ham United on Saturday afternoon.
Gary Beswick, the other linesman during the Villa controversy, received no punishment as he ran the line during Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest. Beswick is on assistant VAR duty for Burnley versus Brentford on Saturday.
Eddie Howe stays diplomatic on Aston Villa controversy
The officials were slammed by the likes of Alan Shearer and Rooney, but Newcastle boss 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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