Unai Emery refuses to blame Marco Bizot after Aston Villa crash out of FA Cup
Unai Emery refused to place the blame on Marco Bizot after the goalkeeper saw red in Villa’s FA Cup defeat to Newcastle.
Villa were 1-0 up and largely comfortable when Bizot hacked down Jacob Murphy 40 yards from goal seconds before the break.
That allowed Newcastle to fight back and win the fourth round tie 3-1 in the second half, thanks to Nick Woltemade’s strike and a double from Sandro Tonali.
Emery said: “Marco is always playing so, so focused and performing fantastic.
“The red card is a difficult circumstance for him. I can’t complain to him. It’s something to get as an experience to learn.
“We will try to improve in everything we are building, even with a bad result today.”
In a match where VAR was not in use and Villa comfortably got the better of some controversial refereeing decisions, Tammy Abraham put them ahead despite replays showing he was clearly offside.
Lucas Digne was then fortunate to see only a yellow card for a rash challenge on Jacob Murphy, before Bizot’s dismissal.
Referee Chris Kavanagh then inexplicably awarded a free-kick when Digne handballed in the box.
But Newcastle levelled from the free-kick anyway when Tonali fired home Martinez’s poor punch via a deflection.
“Today, VAR makes sense,” remarked Emery. “VAR is necessary to help the referees.”
The Villa boss continued: “A lot of very good news in this match, after the result. The result is not good, but how the match was going, we can accept it.
“We can accept the red card. In 90 minutes, Newcastle showed their capacity with one player more than us.
“The first half was fantastic how we competed and were winning, transmitting again our energy.
“The supporters gave a very great atmosphere, helping us today. I felt something which maybe in the last matches I missed - the energy, the players as well, good mood.
“We played a very competitive match. I was so, so happy about us in the first half. With the red card, and Newcastle scoring, it was more difficult for us.
“Overall, we will recover again our good mood like we showed in the first half. We must keep going and be motivated for the next two competitions we are going to face.”
