(Manchester United-Aston Villa 1-0) When Manchester United lacked Cristiano Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho, Scott McTominay used his head and sent United on to the 4th round of the FA Cup.
–
The Scot tested the shooting foot even before six minutes had been played. Two minutes later the ball was in goal behind Emiliano Martínez.
Manchester United got a dream start against Aston Villa in the FA Cup’s 3rd round when Scott McTominay had to go up more or less unpressurized and head in 1-0 on a stroke from Fred.
It was the start of a chance bonanza with spouts and runs at both ends of Old Trafford. Aston Villa put the United defense to the test time and time again, and they also escaped reasonably easily on several occasions.
Like when Victor Lindelöf gave Ollie Watkins a great chance after half an hour of play. Then only the crossbar stood in the way.
Just before the break, Marcus Rashford should have increased to 2-0. He started a race in midfield and had a clear path to the goal. The striker was imprecise when he was about to finish, and Matty Cash got clarified.
One-way driving
At the start of the second half, it was a one-way drive towards the United goal. Danny Ings gave Aston Villa a quick hug as he left the field. After VAR had looked at the TV pictures, Judge Michael Oliver himself had to take a look at the TV screen. While most people wondered if Ollie Watkins was on the ball and thus offside before Ings put it in or the referee chose to blow on what looked like an obstruction of Edinson Cavani.
On the BBC, Gary Lineker stated that the reason for the controversial cancellation was that Jacob Ramsey – who blocked Cavani – was offside when the free kick was hit. That’s why referee Oliver had to go to see the TV pictures and decide whether the offside player was guilty of a free kick. The answer was yes.
It took three minutes and 36 seconds before the referee could pass his sentence. It is also criticized afterwards.
“I think it was the right decision,” Raphaël Varane told the BBC.
Aston Villa manager Steven Gerrard chose to comment on the decision as follows:
– They spent three and a half minutes assessing those situations. When VAR is there, we just have to accept the decision. The easiest thing is to blame bad luck or judges, we are not going to do that. We must become more ruthless and become much better at defending ourselves in our own 16 meters. We dominated large parts of the match and should have decided. When you create as much as we do, we have to score goals.
ESPN’s Dale Johnsen is among the journalists who follow VAR decisions most closely:
Eight minutes later, Ings was in front again, but that goal was also canceled – and now due to offside.
The drive towards the United goal continued, and only at the back did the Manchester United defense gain more control over running Aston Villa strikers.
Several Aston Villa players wanted to look out for the situation just before the end when Ezri Konsa went down on the back post after being hit in the face by Luke Shaw. Konsa was bleeding profusely from the nose, but the referee had no intention of blowing.
– We knew it would be a tough match. The goal was to win today and move on. We managed that, says United manager Ralf Rangnick in an interview shown on Viasat4. Before the match, the German said that Ronaldo and Sancho’s absence was due to “muscular problems”.
Manchester United meet Middlesbrough in the 4th round, but before that they meet Aston Villa-Manchester United in the Premier League on Saturday.
