Based on what I say from Villarreal yesterday, assuming they were to progress, I don't think they'd pose enough of a threat to Man Utd to beat them. Plus, Emery allowed us to get back into a game when they really should have been out of sight by half time by taking off an attacking player for a defensive midfielder. If he were to do anything like that against United, Villarreal will be slaughtered. His teams seldom take advantage of their periods of dominance. As I well know.
Depends on the angles they reviewed. On first viewing, from the angle they showed, it looked like both Capoue and Triguerous tripped him up. Then I saw another angle, and it's clear he initiated contact with Triguerous to 'win' the penalty. Nevertheless, got away with one there...
And such cheating won't stop until they introduce proper sanctions against it. The Laws need to make the punishment exceed the gain
I've been saying for a while that any contact on an opposition player in the box can be given as a penalty these days, regardless of who initiates it, how strong the contact is or the context of the incident. So many players get away with it. It seems to be exacerbated by VAR, who seemingly stick with the referee's original decision, rather than applying common sense to arrive at the right decision.
They are forced into that by the clear error protocol although if last night's decision wasn't a clear error then all is lost. I don't know why they can't go for the Rugby Union protocol of the ref saying he wasn't sure and discussing it with the VAR. But the main issue last night was the referee making things up. There wasn't a trip so he shouldn't have given a penalty.
No, you're wrong. That wasn't the main issue. Referees can make mistakes and can be deceived. The issue was VAR reviewing the decision multiple times and reaching the wrong conclusion. At the very least, they should have told him to review the decision again for himself on the monitor.
You're probably right, but I'd take that right now! Emery made a bunch of mistakes, but the introduction of Coquelin was over-banter, I'm afraid. Alcacer never seems to have the full trust of his managers, for some reason and he's only played 90 minutes once this season. Assuming it was tactical, then it was an error. That Coquelin was the most logical like-for-like for Capoue extended that mistake even further. Hard for the manager to predict two yellows close together like that, but something he should've had an eye out for in that situation.
It's the people in charge, in this case a relatively inexperienced Portuguese ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/João_Pinheiro_(referee) His time in Egypt and Saudi bring Mark Clattenburg to mind, which is never a good thing. The standard clearly isn't good enough and their understanding of the game seems pretty poor, but perhaps the selection is part of it? Refs are taking charge of games every couple of days and mixing in VAR duty along with that. Is it too much? Getting retired officials in to do the VAR might be a temporary solution, as it's less physically demanding.
The funny thing is I actually thought we played better when it was 11v10. We did nothing when it was 10v10. If anything, Villarreal reasserted themselves on the game. Our only two shots on target in the game were the penalty (which we were lucky to get) and Aubameyang's shot in the 94th minute. It's a minor miracle we still have a chance of progressing. The second leg should have just been a formality.
Incorrectly? Very debateable. Won the ball, but studs on the ankle and potentially a denial of a goalscoring opportunity, too. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see that upheld.
If he had been sent off for dangerous play it would still be harsh. He was sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity, but I think that the goalkeeper would have got to the ball first.
He denied the goal scoring opportunity by kicking the ball away with the side of his boot, if this is upheld you should expect to see about 6 defenders per game sent off every week.
