“Would have been appropriate” – Referee wades into debate on Aston Villa man, thinks he should have faced punishment

Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins should have seen red for his challenge on Ajax’s Diant Ramaj and was lucky to get away with a yellow.

That’s according to referee Jeroen Manschot, who has shared his views on the matter following the clash between the two sides on Thursday.

Aston Villa knocked the Dutch giants out of the Europa Conference League this week, with a comfortable 4-0 win at Villa Park helping to seal progression for Unai Emery’s side.

Watkins was one of Aston Villa’s four different goal scorers, bagging the first goal of the game in the 25^th minute.

He was fortunate to be on the pitch at that moment in time, though, after a late challenge on Ajax goalkeeper Ramaj six minutes earlier that earned him a booking.

He suffered a cut to his knee in that challenge, with the goalkeeper seemingly landing on his knee and causing a deep cut which later forced Watkins off of the pitch.

While he undoubtedly came off worse from the challenge, it was a late and poorly executed tackle from the Aston Villa man that Manschot believes should have been punished more severely.

“You have to assess the speed of the tackle and see whether the leg is high, the studs are used and whether the health of the opponent is endangered,” he said.

“The referee gives a yellow card here, then as a video referee you have to look: is the yellow card 100% wrong based on these criteria? You can discuss that.

“I don’t think you do anything like VAR here with either a red or yellow card. All those elements are not met.

“I don’t think the player (Watkins) should complain here with a yellow card. A red card would certainly have been appropriate, but I don’t think you as VAR do much about this.”