Aston Villa: Leon Bailey let down by officials in Manchester United battle
Leon Bailey felt like he was let down by the officials as Aston Villa stunned Manchester United in Unai Emery’s first game in charge.
The Jamaican international caused all kinds of problems for the Red Devils’ defence and one incident saw him gasping for air after Lisandro Martinez appeared to elbow him in the stomach.
The officials claimed to not see the incident and VAR decided not to intervene with no obvious error the interpretation but that wasn’t the end of the matter as Bailey took to Twitter to vent his frustration.
“Very disappointed in the referees today, I couldn’t breathe for a second after getting elbowed twice in my rib,” he said.
“The linesman went on to say I shouldn’t be saying anything because I was doing just the same thing to Martinez. Sometimes I don’t understand why we got VAR.”
Violent conduct
If an attacker jumps up and his elbow connects with the defender in any way, they fall to the floor and get the decision from the referee but it never happens when it is done to the attacker.
This might have been a more subtle use of the elbow by Martinez but that is where VAR has to look at things if it was a red card offence.
It probably wasn’t worth it in isolation but when the replay was shown, it was fairly obvious that there were actually two uses of the elbow rather than one and that could easily be two yellow cards.
Unfortunately, VAR is confined to limited use for goals, offsides, penalties and straight red cards so if it was two yellows worthy, then it could not get involved.
If the linesman has seen it happen, though, then he needs to have the guts to call the foul himself and give the man in the middle some help rather than hiding behind his decisions.
In other Aston Villa news, this teenager is enjoying a purple patch out on loan and could well be banging on the first-team door very soon.