Chris Kavanagh proves that modern referees are absolutely knackered without VAR as he puts up worst refereeing performance in recent memory
The FA absolutely have to take a long, hard look at today's game between Aston Villa and Newcastle United and decide if Chris Kavanagh and his assistants, particularly the lino on the nearside, should ever be involved in a professional game ever again.
There is no VAR in the fourth round of the FA Cup. This is so that the standard of officiating is consistent across the board, as there are still plenty of clubs in the competition who don't have VAR capabilities in their stadia.
If what Chris Kavanagh did today is the standard, then the game is ruined. Newcastle United fans have every right to question what the hell was going on in his tiny mind tonight with some of the decisions he made.
There are two potential explanations, and we honestly feel both are actually possible. One: Chris Kavanagh is a clueless referee who shouldn't be near the game. Two: Chris Kavanagh was paid off by someone to help Aston Villa win. We just don't see any other excuses that could possibly justify what we witnessed tonight.
There were three Aston Villa players offside before they opened the scoring
First massive error wasn't so much Chris Kavanagh's fault. That was Aston Villa's goal. No less than three Aston Villa players were offside when the free kick was struck, one of which was the goalscorer Tammy Abraham. How the linesman missed this, we'll never know.
VAR has its problems, we all know that, but perhaps the biggest one is that it has made officials so scared of making a decision that when VAR isn't in play, they forget to do their actual job, expecting that VAR will bail them out of trouble.
Kavanagh would go on to deny Newcastle United two blatant penalties in the first half for clear fouls in the area, and then, to add insult to what could have been a horrendous injury, the referee showed a yellow card to Lucas Digne after he slid in dangerously on Jacob Murphy. Again, VAR would definitely have upped that to a red card without question.
Chris Kavanagh finally got a big decision right on 45 minutes
It took until the 45th minute for him to get a big call right, and that was when he sent off Marco Bizot for a reckless challenge on Jacob Murphy, which denied Newcastle a clear goal-scoring opportunity. Our guess is that there was no way he could give anything other than the red card and sell it as an error, so he was left with no choice.
I was absolutely convinced that Kavanagh would find a way to even things up in the second half and send a Newcastle player off, but while he didn't go that far, he wasn't done playing stupid games.
Lucas Digne, who shouldn't have been on the pitch anyway, handled the ball inside the box, and the Kavanagh immediately blew his whistle. Finally, Newcastle got a decision ... but he still managed to get it wrong, giving Newcastle a free-kick on the edge of the area despite the offence occurring a good two or three yards inside the area.
VAR might have overturned the decision altogether
In fairness, VAR may well have ruled that it wasn't a penalty anyway, given the position of Digne's arms when the ball struck him, but the fact that Kavanagh confidently blew up and then gave a free-kick is beyond baffling.
We've probably missed something off here, but those were the big incidents that stuck out.
Now it's over to the FA to do something about this absolute mess of a referee.
