Horror show hardly begins to describe just how bad the officiating was at Villa Park on Saturday. Newcastle traveled to face a fellow Premier League side for a fourth-round FA Cup tie. While Tammy Abraham and Sandro Tonali should have been the stars of the show, it was the officiating that truly took center stage.
It is important to note that the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) is not utilized before the fifth round of the FA Cup. On one hand, it was lovely to avoid the constant stoppages that come
with VAR, but its impact on the game was never clearer than when it was absent.
Horrific day for Chris Kavanagh and his team
Referee Chris Kavanagh missed call after call throughout the afternoon. It started early, when he clearly missed Abraham staying a couple of yards offside on his opening goal. He was well behind the Newcastle backline before the free kick was delivered.
It worsened still when he awarded a yellow to Lucas Digne for a studs-up tackle on Jacoby Murphy. Digne easily could have been sent off for the challenge and likely would have if VAR had been available to intervene.
That all led to Marco Bizot seeing red for a clear takedown of Murphy on a goal-scoring opportunity. Kavanagh finally got one right, sending Villa’s second-choice keeper off without hesitation. The Villains were down to 10 men, but they were fortunate not to be playing two men down.
Kavanagh’s indefensible afternoon reached a fever pitch when he awarded Newcastle a free kick for a handball, another infraction committed by Digne. While the call of handball was correct, Kavanagh inexplicably deemed the illegal block to have occurred outside the box, robbing the Toon of a clear penalty. Fortune favored the lads from Tyneside as the ensuing free kick resulted in a Tonali equalizer.
The chaos continued for Kavanagh and his crew. Pau Torres clearly brought down Dan Burn in the box on a corner that should have led to a penalty. It was such a blatantly missed call that the commentators even said Torres knew he could get away with it because there was no VAR.
Time for the FA to step in
The officiating display is a microcosm of the havoc VAR has wreaked upon the sport. Officials have become much too comfortable with allowing the video assistant to bail them out or correct a wrong call. For referees like Kavanagh, who routinely handle Premier League matches, it is difficult to switch back into a mode where there is no safety net.
At this point, the FA is in a bit of a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” type of situation when it comes to VAR. Fans hate the constant disruptions to the flow of the game for every single decision made by officials. However, it is difficult to accept that there is no recourse when officials get it as wrong as Kavanagh did on Saturday.
The logical next step is for the FA to introduce VAR for the third round, when Premier League teams typically enter the competition, and beyond in the FA Cup and limit its scope. Discussions about how to fix the system are not new, but hopefully, there can be one positive from this disheartening display. Had Newcastle not found a way back into the match, the roar of disapproval emanating from Tyneside would have been overwhelming. Just because the right side won the match does not mean nothing needs to be done.
