Unai Emery reveals reason for ref rage after Aston Villa draw at Crystal Palace

An angry Emery confronted referee Andy Madley at full-time after both the on-pitch official and video assistant Michael Oliver disregarded Brennan Johnson appearing to pull down Youri Tielemans in the box at a corner.

Villa, who saw two first half shouts for handball waved away, were also left frustrated when Morgan Rogers was pulled back without a free-kick being awarded.

Johnson, making his Palace debut, was earlier booked by Madley for diving when he went down in the Villa box, an incident which was checked by VAR.

Emery said: “To speak about the referee is one minute or 30 seconds. It is more important to speak about the match. 

“I respect the referees, but they must check the action on Youri Tielemans. It is a potential penalty.

“I don’t know who is in the VAR, but if they checked Brennan Johnson’s possible penalty, which was clear for me, then Tielemans’ possible penalty in the corner should have been checked.

“He was being held for one, two, three seconds. I think this is the action.”

Villa came closest to winning the match when they hit the post late on through Ollie Watkins, while Rogers also saw a close-range effort deflected over by Maxence Lacroix, with Madley bizarrely awarding a goal-kick.

Emi Martinez had earlier denied Johnson one-on-one before going off injured at half-time. His replacement, Marco Bizot, saved from Yeremy Pino as Palace pushed in the second half.

Emery revealed Martinez had a calf injury and will be assessed.

"He has a small injury,” said Emery. "I am not a doctor, but it is in his calf.

"He played fantastic in the first half, and then Marco Bizot also played fantastic in the second half.

"Now we will check him with the doctor and hopefully in a few days or weeks he will come back ready to play."