Aston Villa boss Unai Emery insisted the referee made a big mistake in our 2-0 defeat to Manchester United.
While the hosts were ultimately the better side at Old Trafford and deserved to win as Villa produced a bitterly disappointing display, a crucial decision proved to be decisive in the second half.
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Morgan Rogers thought he had broken the deadlock to give us the lead, but the referee had blown his whistle to rule it out having awarded a foul, thus also ruling out VAR’s ability to get involved in the process.
Unsurprisingly, the Villa players and Emery were all furious as we then went on to concede just minutes later and subsequently missed out on Champions League qualification, but the Basque coach refused to show that frustration and anger in his post-match interview for the most part as he preferred not to address it in detail with emotions running high.
“Good evening. The TV is clear with the move but of course, we have to accept it. It was a mistake. A big mistake,” he said, as quoted by BBC Sport.
“The match we played overall in 90 minutes with the red card and this goal disallowed, it was a key moment. but overall, they did more. But we showed resilience with one player less. We could have scored one goal and it would have been a good opportunity to continue and keep the result. We didn’t perform enough today to get a good result but we could get it, in case some decision weren’t like it was.”
On whether he has talked to referee about the incident:Â “Yes, I told him but he knows it.”
On whether the referee admitted it was a mistake:Â “The next question?”
On whether VAR rules need to be changed:Â “I don’t want to speak about VAR now.”
On Aston Villa’s season:Â “We did a big effort during the second part of the season. We lost the chance to be in the top five during the first half. I was happy with how we progressed in the season and achieved the opportunity to play today for the Champions League position.
“We got the Europa League and we have to be more or less happy about the achievement. But we were close to the Champions League. We have to be happy and proud of everything we did but we always want to improve. We need to keep going and the Premier League is the most difficult league and to get Europe through the league is difficult.”
While it’s difficult to enjoy our achievement of qualifying for the Europa League at this stage given the overwhelming sense of disappointment of how Sunday played out, it remains an important consolation.
Either way, there is a big summer ahead now for Villa as the club could be forced into more big decisions than they hoped with no Champions League football, and so the decision from the referee could have major implications for us moving forward.
Qualifying for Europe in three consecutive seasons is an excellent achievement for Emery and his Villa squad, but lessons must be learned going into next season as we continue to fall short in big games away from Villa Park in terms of our approach and intent.
