Emery reacts to huge VAR decision as late goal denies Aston Villa win

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·26 October 2024

Emery reacts to huge VAR decision as late goal denies Aston Villa win

Unai Emery felt his Aston Villa side deserved to beat Bournemouth on Saturday, but had no complaints with the decision to disallow a goal from John McGinn.

The Scotland international thought he had opened the scoring in the first half of the 1-1 draw at Villa Park, but a VAR review showed the ball had crossed the endline prior to Jacob Ramsey’s low cross.

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“VAR is clear, of course,” the Basque native told BBC Match of the Day after the full-time whistle.

“If VAR is telling us no goal it’s clear. For me the referee was fantastic today. It was not a goal because it was out, through VAR.”

Villa eventually broke the deadlock through Ross Barkley, who replaced Amadou Onana at the interval. But the hosts were denied victory by Bournemouth striker Evanilson, who headed home an equaliser deep into stoppage time.

“We played a fantastic match, against this team was very difficult,” Emery said. “We imposed our ideas. We created chances to scored in the first half, we had one goal which was not because the ball was out.

“We improved even in the second half and for 35 minutes we played fantastic. We created chances, we stopped them, and we scored the goal. But we knew before how we needed to be always ready for everything, because they are a team who are always going forward when they get the ball.

“At the last moment we didn’t control the match. For the last 10 minutes we didn’t control. Of course we deserved to win, but we have to accept it. It’s painful but we have to accept it.”

Emery added: “We are being very demanding and we want to be in the top position in the league. But we have to accept that we are continuing. We are having a fantastic start in the league and Champions League and we are of course frustrated because we want to win.”

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