Unai Emery Fumes at Aston Villa Penalty Call and Makes Honest Liverpool Admission
Unai Emery shared his thoughts following Aston Villa’s 2-0 Premier League loss to Liverpool at Anfield, expressing disappointment over what he saw as a missed penalty opportunity that could have changed the game.
Emery argued that Aston Villa were “clearly” denied a penalty, a decision he felt significantly impacted the match. Villa were trailing after Darwin Nunez’s goal when, close to the 60-minute mark, Pau Torres went down in the penalty area.
Torres was involved in a physical encounter with Liverpool substitute Conor Bradley as Villa were setting up for a free-kick from the left wing.
Despite Villa’s appeals, referee David Coote dismissed the penalty claim, and the incident was reviewed and subsequently cleared by VAR official Paul Tierney.
In another contentious moment, Villa believed Torres had been fouled by Ryan Gravenberch just before Mohamed Salah raced downfield and scored Liverpool’s second goal, sealing the 2-0 victory and pushing Liverpool five points ahead at the top of the Premier League standings.
Reflecting on the first penalty incident, a disappointed Emery remarked: “With the VAR, it was clearly a penalty because he pulled the shirt of Pau Torres.
“I know in Europe this is a penalty but here in England, they want to use VAR but I don’t know exactly where because in this situation it is clear. I always respect the decision of the referee and I respect it but for me, when I watched it with VAR it is a clear penalty.
“And, of course, it was in a very important moment in the game because if we had the opportunity to shoot the penalty, maybe the match would have been different. I accept the result and the referee’s decision but I don’t agree.”
Of the game, Emery added: “The result is not good. However, we played 90 minutes trying to be competitive, which was the plan we had. We conceded to transition, we knew they are strong in transition with the players they have but in 90 minutes how we played, how some players are getting better, I am confident because I think we are in the right way.
“We wanted to get more but we can accept the result because they (Liverpool) are feeling very strong here at home. They didn’t really dominate or create a lot of chances to us.
“We created some attacks, but we needed a bit more to get a real chance to score. We had one very clear chance with Morgan Rogers at the start of the second half and then we try but they (Liverpool) are one of the best defences in the world.”
Last season, Villa ended up 14 points behind third-placed Liverpool and one spot lower in the standings. However, after just 11 games this season, they already trail the Reds by 10 points.
And Emery said: “We are trying to increase our level of the match but of course there still distance to teams in the Premier League like Liverpool and Manchester City.
“There is still a gap between Liverpool and us. Last year we were close in the table, this year the gap is bigger, the gap is still one gap for them better than us.
“I think we can reduce the distance in 38 matches, try to be consistent to be demanding, to improve things, to recover some players.”
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