Manchester Utd v Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[wolfman999]

Not sure what Digne has done to be dropped in recent weeks. Maatsen has more pace and threat going forward but he is half-brainless in defence. Needless foul for the penalty, ball-watching for the first goal against the one player he could potentially dominate in the air given they both look 12 (him and Diallo) and he also tried to head the ball back to Olsen from the halfway circle when it wasn't on and got away with it.

This seems to have been overlooked.

However good he is going forward he's always an accident waiting to happen defensively. Why rake your studs down that lad's ankle as he' moving away from the penalty area. Madness.

Or to remove the hyperbole "why try to put your foot on the floor as you're running and the guy dangles his foot in your way hoping for contact".

To be clear, that sort of contact is exactly what the FA were saying wasn't a foul when they did the whole 'higher bar' for contact thing that was supposed to have come in this season. At best it was a 50/50 decision and, given the ref knows he'd alrady fucked us over, you'd normally expect a bit of common sense to not give it. Lets be clear, the ref didn't give the penalty at first, the linesman didn't flag and nothing came up to suggest a VAR review, then after a few seconds (i.e. waiting to give himself time to think, not something he did earlier) he gave it, seemingly because Diallo was dying on the floor.

A classic OT penalty as we have seen over many years. A weak as piss official giving a decision to please the baying mob.

[ez]

I'm probably stupid but  I don't understand the ref blowing whistle thing. Surely the whistle gets blown all the time and things get checked and altered by VAR?

He blew before the goal. play is dead as soon as the whistle goes.

Yeah - on the basis that players stop when the whistle goes so if it hadn't blown then someone might have been able to stop the goal. Although you can see the nearest Man U player pull up, I have no idea how it could have played out any differently without the whistle.

The defender would never have got to the ball in time.

[Toronto Villa]

John McGinn: "I don't think anyone in the dressing room or anyone watching the game felt we deserved to win. Manchester United deserved to win. They were the better team and were on front foot. But the decision [Rogers goal] is incredible." It's so hard to take, the impact on us as a club. For Thomas to blow his whistle at that point, it's tough to handle."

[Chip Butty 111]

Definitely a red card and a penalty unfortunately, the disallowed goal was an unforgivable mistake from the ref, who clearly couldn't be sure what had happened as he was a good distance from the incident and should never have blown. At the end of the day it's probably cost us north of £50M, means a couple will be off and denies a few of ever playing CL football again..not sure how that ref ever gets a game at VP again?

[PeterWithesShin]

Everything VAR takes ages over is something that happened while the ball is live. Ref blows, ball is dead.

[passport1]

Very disa]pointing end to an exciting season. A slight niggle that whilst Emery system works in the majority of games in two key games this season opposition teams have found it relatively easy to set up in a way that stops it working completely. I hope these are blips rather than causes for concern.

[Stu]

Premier League Match Centre

@PLMatchCentre
#MUNAVL – 72’

The referee’s call was a free kick to Manchester United with Bayindir deemed to be in control of the ball before Rogers gained possession. The whistle was blown by the referee before the ball entered the goal, therefore the incident was not reviewable by the VAR.

I mean, these are rules which no one knows about until all of a sudden they apply. This is PGMOL working rules into a very simple virtual assistant referee system which they have mismanaged from the start.

I'd sue the fuckers for £80m+ for lost revenue.

It was a shite performance from us but VAR really needs to be looked at. It cannot be down to PGMOL to elect what to look at, it needs to be down to the teams playing. One review per half.

[PaulWinch again]

John McGinn: "I don't think anyone in the dressing room or anyone watching the game felt we deserved to win. Manchester United deserved to win. They were the better team and were on front foot. But the decision [Rogers goal] is incredible." It's so hard to take, the impact on us as a club. For Thomas to blow his whistle at that point, it's tough to handle."

That’s true, but the first bit - why? That’s the second huge game in recent times where we’ve been completely outplayed. That’s not good enough.

[LukeJames]

It was a definite penalty. I like how the referee gave himself time to think before awarding it, this shows to me that he has what it takes to be a top referee at this level.

[eamonn]

I'm pleased we got Europa football instead of Conference.  We played really poorly today and sad to say, choked.  That said, I'd have taken 6th at the start of the season and happy to do so now.  I do hope a few of these players have stretched the Villa shirt for the last time.

Agree 100%. We decided to play in the last 10 mins and created a few chances. Malen has to play a much bigger role next year, he's far more dynamic than Watkins who looks to me as if he's looking elsewhere next season.

I couldn't believe how utterly shit we were for the first 20 mins and that comes from no bottle and lack of nerve, its not on the manager. There's at least three out there who I hope depart in summer.

I might be in the minority but Watkins over Malen every day of the week. His one chance to do something when he came on was to set Watkins away on the counter-attack but he totally overplayed his pass. I'm yet to be convinced of his football intelligence or his contributions off the ball. He was on the fringes of a Dortmund team in freefall. He's effectively a swap for Philogene and he's already done more than Jaden but if he's a regular starter next season, I can't see us challenging for top four.

[paul_e]

Absolutely gutted with the result, the wrongly disallowed goal, going down to 10 men and our abysmal performance. If the goal was allowed to stand, we'll never know if we would have gone to avoid defeat.

No  the only thing we can know for sure is that we had a 100% legitimate goal chalked off because of incompetence. Nothing else matters and trying to justify it as "maybe they'd have worked harder and won 3-1 instead" or that we should account for a decision like that is just some weird coping bullshit. The ref has fucked up and cost us but some people would rather bitch and moan at Maatsen, Emery, Martinez, etc and I have no fucking idea why.

[aj2k77]

All comes back to useless Refs I guess. That's why we have th abomination of VAR in the first place.

[Mellin]

Quote fail.

[BC54 VFC]

Played like a bunch of showroom dummies, today; absolutely no craft to make it work.

[PaulWinch again]

I’m not sure rather - it’s both, ref fucked up with a terrible mistake. But we were also diabolically bad. We should have been 1-0 in front, and we might have won, but we also might have lost given how we’d played.