Aston Villa concede farcical Champions League penalty as Tyrone Mings PICKS UP ball
Aston Villa defender Tyrone Mings picked up the ball when Emiliano Martinez passed it to him from a goal kick, thinking that play hadn't yet restarted
by Mark Jones · The MirrorAston Villa conceded a remarkable penalty to concede the only goal in their Champions League clash with Club Brugge on Wednesday night, with the Premier League side dropping their first points in the competition.
Early in the second half Villa defender Tyrone Mings picked up the ball when Emiliano Martinez passed it to him from a goal kick, thinking that play hadn't yet restarted. However German referee Tobias Stieler felt that the game had begun again with Martinez's kick and so penalised Villa for handball, with Brugge's Hans Vanaken scoring from the spot.
Villa defender Mings was making his first ever start in a European competition having recently returned from a long-term knee injury, and he and his team-mates remonstrated with Stieler over the decision. Mings was then substituted shortly afterwards.
Manager Unai Emery also cut a furious figure on the bench, but after Stieler consulted with VAR the decision was allowed to stand.
Commentating on the game for BBC Radio Five Live the former Villa defender Stephen Warnock recalled a similar incident in the quarter-final fixture between Arsenal and Bayern Munich last season when Gabriel picked up a David Raya goal kick.
"Arsenal got away with doing the same thing against Bayern Munich in the Champions League last season - maybe this time the referee has seen that the Brugge players are closing Mings down?" said Warnock.
"I want to look at it again but I don't think Tyrone Mings has looked at Emi Martinez at all when he took the goal-kick, which is why he thinks he can pick it up because he does not know it has been taken."
The then Bayern boss Thomas Tuchel fumed at that decision in the 2-2 draw at he Emirates Stadium in April, saying: "I think the referee did not have the courage to give a deserved penalty today in a bit of a crazy and awkward situation.
“He admitted on the pitch that he saw the situation and that quarter-final is not enough for him to give a penalty, for a kid’s mistake. He admitted he saw the mistake the player made.
“It was a goal kick, the goalkeeper passed to a central defender and one touched the ball with the hand because he thought it was not in game but it was in game and the referee admitted it was in game and was handball. Very frustrating.”
Tuchel, the new England manager, added that referee Glenn Nyberg later admitted that he should have awarded the penalty.
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