Howe questions 'strange' officiating in Newcastle vs Villa
With VAR not in operation until the fifth round, Tammy Abraham's opener was allowed to count despite being clearly offside, with Lucas Digne also escaping a red card and clear penalty for handball in the second half.
Sandro Tonali's double and a birthday goal for Nick Woltemade secured their spot in the next round but Howe was still left questioning the officiating of the game in his post-match interviews.
"It felt like one of those games where any contentious decision was going against us," Howe told BBC Sport.
"Of course, it's not intentional from the officials and it is one of those things you have to accept.
"The players did really well to control their emotions and not get into further trouble but it did feel strange. The penalty for a handball, I could see that one from where I was!
"It felt like one of those days where it is not going to happen. The players did really well, it is not as easy as it's made out to be to break down a stubborn defensive unit. We did that really well in the second half."
Howe says VAR has given referees something to hide behind.
"I think there's an argument to say that, because when VAR is there, there's always a, 'Well, I won't give that, but let's check it'," he said.
"And I think then your decision-making maybe isn't as sharp as it may normally have to be, so maybe there's a difference there.
"I'm always torn on VAR. I said this many times because I still love the emotion, even tonight, when a goal is given and you don't see a flag or a referee, it's a goal, and no one's going to take it away from you.
"That joy that you get in that moment, I still really love and VAR takes it away. But then on the other side, I was wishing there was VAR on the first goal against us, and probably throughout that game.
"I think it does give accurate results. It does make the game more concise in terms of decision-making and those moments, you have to respect that they're worth their weight in gold, especially for us today, when we're on the wrong side of it.
"So I'm still very much torn on it.
"The officials don't make any [wrong] decision on purpose. It's what they think at the time. But with without VAR, I thought there was a lot of errors."
Sky Sports News have approached the PGMOL for comment on Howe's criticism.
by stprm
11 Comments
criticism? he speaks the truth and he was very measured in what he said, even a blind person could see what the ref trio missed today
Very diplomatic Eddie. Now let’s see what Maddog would’ve said
That was the most amount of really…. REALLY poor decisions in a game I can remember witnessing. Only the offside and the handball calls would have changed with VAR though.
The handball one stands out the most. I font think there was ever a time even before VAR where the referees and linesmen where so switched off as to see an incident but completely misjudge whether it was in the box or not. The reality is that referee didn’t want his decision to influence the game, and by trying to be conservative he ended up putting himself right in the firing line for influencing a game.
Honestly all the officials for this one needs to have a pretty stern debrief, because it was an embarrassing performance.
All var is doing is masking how inept the officials are. Given it’s the same pricks from the pitch that end up in the var box, this is no surprise.
VAR or no VAR is not the question.
Competent officials or clowns is the question.
And the answer is resoundingly obvious.
A nice brace for Sandro and I’m delighted to see Big Nick get on the score sheet 👍
That’s an understatement. They should lodge a complaint.
For those 3 decision u don’t need VAR..
Just a ref and linesman that can see..
From deadball situation how can linesman not spot that clear offside..
Murphy one u can see where he got hit on his leg..
Penalty one.. Linesman and ref both can see Digne didn’t even went outside the box..
For the people who say VAR should be removed, this one is for you. I get the little 50/50 calls and stopping the game and how annoying that can be. But they literally missed an offside goal, a red card and a penalty. Getting the big decisions wrong is way, way worse.
I was saying earlier in the week after the offside call that VAR use needs relaxing to actually give the officials some decisions to make rather than taking it all away from them.
SSN should be approaching PGMOL to ask them to comment on that abomination of an officiating performance, rather than what Eddie said. Wouldn’t surprise me if Eddie gets fined now tbh.
The refereeing in this game was so unbelievably bad, that it almost feels intentional to make us all appreciate VAR more and give them an easier ride going forward. It’s just hard to imagine another reason as to how the officiating could have been quite so bad. The handball 3 yards inside the box is unbelievable.