00:01Aston Villa manager Unai Emery was highly critical of the video assistant referee, also known as VAR, after his side's
00:111-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in the first leg of their Europa League semi-final.
00:16He said that VAR had performed very poorly and failed to act on what he believed was a clear red
00:23card offence by Elliot Anderson.
00:26Emery explained that Anderson had made a dangerous studs-up challenge on Aston Villa striker Ollie Watkins, catching his ankle
00:36after winning the ball, and he said that he did not understand why the referee had not been advised to
00:43review the incident.
00:46Emery said that he thought it was a huge moment in the game and stressed that VAR was responsible for
00:52such decisions while he praised referee Yao Pinheiro, saying that he had done an excellent job and managed the match
01:01perfectly over the 90 minutes.
01:03Emery insisted that the failure to send Anderson off was unacceptable.
01:09He added that after watching the incident back on replays, he was shocked by its severity and warned that Watkins
01:18could have been seriously injured for the rest of the season.
01:23Emery said that VAR officials had professional responsibility to intervene in such clear situations.
01:30This comes after Mikel Arteta criticised VAR against Atletico Madrid when a penalty was overturned for what he described was
01:39not a clear and obvious error.
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