Ex-PGMOL chief Keith Hackett acted to Leipzig v Aston Villa footage he saw (Credit: BBC Sport on iPlayer)

Ex-FIFA official reacts to Aston Villa incident v Leipzig after footage he saw

Refereeing Consultant AUTHORITY Former FIFA Referee; Head of PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited). FOCUS Laws of the Game, VAR implementation, officiating performance, and PGMOL policy. THE AUDIT Keith utilises Statscore’s Officiating Telemetry, including Deep-Data Metrics like Incident Accuracy Rates, VAR Intervention Latency, and Official Positional Efficiency. He provides technical refereeing analysis to reveal the regulatory reality behind match-defining decisions.

Published on:

12 Dec 2024, 6:35 am

Keith Hackett backed the decision to disallow what would have been a second goal for Jhon Duran as Aston Villa defeated RB Leipzig 3-2 in the Champions League.

The Colombia international, on as a half-time substitute at the Red Bull Arena, had already scored a wondergoal to put the visitors into a 2-1 lead.

Duran thought he had a second shortly after when he coolly side-footed home Matty Cash's pin-point centre from the right flank.

However, after a VAR intervention, it was deemed Cash had set off too soon when receiving the ball and the goal was disallowed (BBC iPlayer).

Former FIFA official Hackett, speaking exclusively to Villa News, gave this thoughts on the incident.

He said: "Duran scored a screamer for Villa to make it 2-1.

"Duran later scored a second but the goal was correctly ruled out for offside after VAR intervention."

Jhon Duran denied second goal by VAR as Aston Villa beat RB Leipzig

There were few complaints about the goal being disallowed, and it certainly appeared a fair decision at the time.

There were even fewer complaints when Ross Barkley scored a later winner after Villa had been pegged back to 2-2 by Christoph Baumgartner.

[Credit: Sky Sports Premier League on YouTube]

Duran now has 10 goals across all competitions for Villa this season and there have been calls from some for him to start over Ollie Watkins.

England striker Watkins has been in a rough patch of goalscoring for Unai Emery's men and Duran continues to do his chances of more starts no harm.

In other Aston Villa news, an injury update has emerged prior to this weekend's clash with Nottingham Forest.

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