Aston Villa were denied a point at Selhurst Park after Kevin Friend robbed the away side of an away point.
Crystal Palace made one less foul than their visitors in the first half, but it was Villa that faced all four bookings. Trezeguet eventually received his marching orders in the second period after collecting his second yellow of the afternoon.
Friend’s inconsistency was one thing… but what followed was an altogether staggering situation.
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As Villa went in search of an equaliser – having fallen to a Jordan Ayew goal – Jack Grealish drove towards the Palace penalty area in added time. Wilfried Zaha’s push forced Grealish to keep his balance, but as he stumbled, he attracted a late tackle from Gary Cahill before assisting Henri Lansbury to strike beyond Vicente Guaita.
Ruled out seconds later, Grealish and his teammates were left both astonished and dismayed that a yellow card was flashed in the face of Villa’s captain.
Ayew scores only goal of the game
Villa had seemingly fought back from a one-goal deficit after Jordan Ayew opened the scoring. He wriggled past Tyrone Mings to slot past Tom Heaton as Palace made use of the numerical advantage at Selhurst Park.
Dean Smith’s Villa remained unchanged but failed to make a similar impact to that in the game against Everton.
After an opening twenty minutes of dominant football, Villa stepped off in quality and decision making to allow Palace to control proceedings from thereon.
After Trezeguet’s second booking, Dean Smith reverted to a 4-3-2, as Keinan Davis led the line with Wesley, and in search of an equalising goal, Villa was caught out.
Aston Villa will now regroup after an International break, before hosting West Ham United on the following Monday night.
Oh dear. Did you get a decision go against you. Palace have had so many I’ve lost count. You didn’t do enough to earn a point, get over it.
I agree with your last point about we didn’t deserve anything from the game but to say that is a reason to not reward a clear goal is poor. Equally just because you have had loads of things go against you doesn’t mean we deserve something to go against us does it?
And things didn’t go your way? Yes, you dominated but your goal comes from a lucky bounce off two of our players and i also remember Schlupp getting Guilbert booked for a blatant dive.
The bigger picture is the ref shouldn’t have blown his whistle under the new rules this season and did. Just by not allowing play to go on he was in breach of the rules.
Jack Grealish had gone to ground numerous times in the game, drawing a booking for one Palace player on one occasion when he (Grealish) leant in to the player then fell dramatically. The referee was consistent throughout the game, with several Villa players notably McGiinn and Grealish arguing obviously correct decisions and naively risking further bookings. Trezeguet was covering Zaha gor Taylor who was standing off Zaha to avoid another booking.
The footage suggests to my eye that Grealish again went to ground in the box when the contact such as it was was outside, so I could fully understand why the referee drew his conclusion.
Grealish is an excellent player but his “diving” behaviours let him down. Zaha can be guilty of the same albeit not yesterday.
What about Schlupp? His was a clear dive who got our player booked.
Also if you watch the replay Jack was pushed in the back by Zaha outside the box (so yes you could argue this is the original foul) he is also clipped by Cahill INSIDE THE BOX (another foul but I can see saying it could have been seen as harsh). Jack went down and got straight back up – not once does he look at any official or raise his arm for a foul.
The rules of the game state the referee should never have stopped the attacking play until the attacking phase and ended. He broke the rules. Not Jack.
As already mentioned, Jack’s history of being the most fouled player in the Championship is working against him. In the eyes of the obviously less than bright referees, this equates to, he’s always looking for the foul, so keep an eye on him and book him for any antics. What I can’t understand is why VAR would not have been deployed to clear this matter up beyond the poor, sad referee’s conclusion.
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