Unai Emery believes James McAtee should have been shown a red card at Villa Park, and that VAR should have told the referee to take another look. The Aston Villa head coach made the claim after watching his side lose 2-1 to Nottingham Forest on Saturday, a defeat that handed Oliver Glasner his first win as Reds head coach.
The flashpoint came late. Villa had clawed themselves level through Alysson after Liam Delap’s opener, only for Ian Maatsen to limp out of the game following a challenge from McAtee. The Forest midfielder was booked and withdrawn shortly afterwards — and a few minutes later Igor Jesus poked in the winner against a Villa side by then reduced to 10 men, their substitutions already used.
What Emery said about the James McAtee red card claim
Speaking after the match, and quoted by the Nottingham Post, Emery was pointed without being bitter.
“When we equalised, the match could change, but we finished with Ian Maatsen injured,” he said. “With 10 players, we conceded so many chances in the last minutes and they scored the second goal and they deserved it.
“But after watching it on TV, I think the VAR referee should call the referee because it’s a clear tackle from behind and for me it should be a red card. Of course, they deserved it. They played the second half, deserved to win. But the decision of the referee should be different.”
He returned to the same point moments later, stressing he did not think the challenge was malicious.
“After the injury of Maatsen we’re finishing with 10 and, of course, we can have one injured player on the field. But in this case it was a tackle and he injured the player. Of course, he didn’t want to injure our player,” Emery said. “But if we can watch it through the TV, it’s a VAR action, and to call the referee it should be a red card and maybe finishing with 10 v 10 was different in the match.”
Emery takes the blame anyway
To his credit, the Villa boss refused to hide behind the officials. “It’s not an excuse for how we played in the second half,” he added. “We played so, so poor, and this is my responsibility.”
That second-half admission will sting more in the West Midlands than any refereeing grievance. Forest were the better side after the break from the moment Delap lashed in, and Glasner’s substitutions — Jesus chief among them — carried far more threat than Villa’s.
A booking Forest will happily live with
From a Garibaldi point of view, the McAtee tackle is the sort of yellow card a travelling support tends to file under “job done”. He had already been one of the more combative figures in a game Forest had to win ugly for long stretches, and Glasner has been steadily building minutes into the midfielder since the start of the season. Our profile of the No 24 charts how quickly he has moved from squad option to trusted starter under the Austrian.
There is also context Emery may not want reminding of. Saturday made it eight matches unbeaten for Glasner against Villa across his spells at Crystal Palace and now at the City Ground, per the Nottingham Post, and it ended a Forest wait for an away win at Villa Park stretching back to 1994. Emery himself has admitted his teams struggle against Glasner.
No retrospective action has been announced, and with the incident seen and dealt with by the referee on the day, none would be expected. Forest, meanwhile, have far bigger things to think about than an opposition manager’s post-match view of a yellow card: Coventry City visit the City Ground this weekend, with Nikola Milenkovic already ruled out and Jair Cunha a doubt. Three points at Villa Park have finally got the season moving. The Reds will take the argument that came with them.
