Aston Villa have been on the wrong end of some controversial refereeing decisions this term, with Howard Webb now shedding light on one interesting statistic.

Unai Emery was left angered by Aston Villa not being awarded a penalty against Liverpool. Conor Bradley dragged Pau Torres in the box but referee David Coote waved any claims away.

Gary Lineker slammed the decision as ‘bonkers’ to not award Villa a penalty, as Emery’s men were beaten 2-0 by Liverpool at Anfield.

Failure to hand the visitors a spot kick in the match isn’t the only time the Villans have felt hard done by this term, as Matty Cash’s handball in the box handed Fulham a penalty in a 3-1 win.

Matty Cash is the only Premier League player to concede a penalty for handball in 2024/25

Cash has a history of giving away penalties. In Villa’s 2-1 win over West Ham on the opening day, Cash put in a clumsy challenge on Tomas Soucek before the Hammers converted from 12-yards.

Alan Shearer also felt Cash should have conceded a penalty against Bournemouth for his mistimed tackle on Antoine Semenyo.

On this occasion, the Villa right-back was very fortunate but as mentioned above, he didn’t quite have the same luck against Fulham, as his handball was given.

Analysing the decision via the Premier League’s official website, PGMOL Chief Operating Officer Howard Webb felt it was the correct decision, explaining that his handball was the first and only penalty of its nature in 110 matches this term.

“It’s a really interesting stat (the first handball penalty) because previous seasons we would have been higher than that,” Webb said.

“We spoke to lots of people in the game, spoke to captains, managers, fan groups and a whole range of people, and we asked a number of questions about the way we officiate.

“And some of the questions we got were about handball. And the feedback we got is that we give too many handballs that are not real handball offences, where players are moving really normally and can’t do much about it.

“So we took that on board and gave guidance on only penalising when the players either clearly deliberately handled the ball – they move their hand to the ball – or they play in a way that is not justifiable, where their arm is clearly away from the body in a way it doesn’t need to be.

“Like we see with Matty Cash here. I don’t know why he’s got his arm in that position. It’s close, but what’s his left arm doing there right in front of Raul Jimenez? Even though it is close, it’s just obviously in an unnatural position, in our opinion, and that is a good penalty and correctly awarded.”

Aston Villa must replace Cash next summer

Cash has already given away multiple penalties for silly errors and we’re not even a third of the way through the season.

There was a lot of talk about Cash leaving Aston Villa in the summer, with AC Milan rumoured to be interested.

However, Emery decided to keep his starting right-back as he didn’t sign anyone else in that position, meaning Villa were left light in defence.

Perhaps the Spaniard should consider selling the former Nottingham Forest man next summer, and sign someone who is less error-prone than the Villa star.

Related Posts