Unai Emery expresses VAR process frustration after Aston Villa decisions

The Spaniard was left fuming when Jhon Duran was sent-off for an alleged stamp in Villa’s Boxing Day defeat at Newcastle, claiming referee Anthony Taylor should have been sent to the pitchside monitor.

Villa also felt more scrutiny should have been given to a penalty appeal in their 2-1 defeat at Nottingham Forest earlier in December, when Morgan Rogers appeared to be pulled down in the box.

Emery has largely avoided criticising referees and officiating since taking charge of Villa in November 2022 but used his programme notes ahead of Monday’s match with Brighton to make the case for VAR being used more often.

Those words must have been ringing in the ears of the officials - as Villa had two lengthy waits in the first half as two penalty calls went to VAR, with the second being given.

He wrote: “Since I came to Villa, you know I run away from justifying any defeat or draw with an external factor: not the grass or tiredness, nor the schedule, the budget of the opponent and even less the referees.

“I don’t fake any disagreement if I don’t feel really an injustice. That is not on my agenda.

"Referees are under high pressure with an extremely difficult task. I respect every referee as a professional, but even more so a human being.

“But I want to make public my disagreement with some of the last few decisions we received recently.

“Not because they were against us or not in our favour. It is just because in the process in the decision making. In our opinion, the referees are not using enough and correctly the VAR.”

Emery continued: “The video referee came to help us to avoid injustice and mistakes, and if we use it to protect a certain way of understanding the refereeing of football or just to protect whatever it takes  for the on-field decisions to be delivered - right or wrong - by the referee.

“VAR cannot be overused to break the spirit of the game but if it is existing and available, VAR must neither be underused on purpose and leg big mistakes happen without using all the tools correctly.”