---
title: "Aston Villa: Halsey discusses potential red card for Zaha"
canonical: "https://www.footballtransfertavern.com/aston-villa-halsey-discusses-potential-red-card-for-zaha-e20/"
type: "post"
language: "en-GB"
author: "kaus pandey"
section: "Aston Villa"
published: "2020-12-28T14:35:19Z"
modified: "2020-12-28T14:35:19Z"
---

# Aston Villa: Halsey discusses potential red card for Zaha

**Former referee Mark Halsey has talked about whether Wilfried Zaha should have been sent off in Aston Villa’s recent Premier League win at Villa Park.**

Dean Smith’s Villa picked up a 3-0 win over Crystal Palace on Saturday despite being down to ten men. Tyrone Mings was sent off after picking up two yellow cards, but the first yellow came as a result of a flashpoint involving Zaha and the defender. Zaha also got a yellow card for the incident ([as per BBC Sport](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55456079)).

\[freshpress-poll id=”339858″\]

Smith [described both bookings](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55456079) as soft yellow cards but Halsey has talked about whether Zaha himself should’ve been sent off for what happened during the flashpoint where he appeared to throw a hand at the Villa defender.

### Halsey on whether Zaha deserved a red against Aston Villa

Halsey was exclusively talking to The Transfer Tavern recently and he discussed whether the Palace winger should’ve been sent off for throwing a hand at Mings. The former referee believes that VAR must have had a look at the incident and deemed it not to be worthy of a red card. Halsey himself feels that yellow cards for both Zaha and Mings were appropriate outcomes.

He said:

> “I mean, you could argue the case (of a red card) but then, you have to say ‘well, why didn’t VAR pick that up and recommend a review?’ So VAR must have been happy that it wasn’t a serious and obvious error made by the referee on that occasion. To be fair, I thought two yellow cards was the right outcome in that situation.”

Villa were [1-0 up](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55373752) when Mings was sent off but despite the disadvantage, Smith’s men [scored through](https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/55373752) Anwar El Ghazi and Kortney Hause in the second half.

### Villa showed grit despite the disadvantage

It is anyone’s guess if Zaha’s sending off would’ve made any difference in the result considering the fact that Villa won 3-0 even while having ten men on the pitch. More than that, Smith’s men completely outperformed Palace on xG as well, generating a tally of as much as 3.5 while Palace’s tally stood at a lowly 1.06 despite the man advantage ([as per FBRef](https://fbref.com/en/matches/537b6ef8/Aston-Villa-Crystal-Palace-December-26-2020-Premier-League)).

Zaha had picked up a rating of only 6.32 in the game and while that was the fourth-highest rating for the Eagles, it was a disappointing rating in a general perspective ([as per Whoscored](https://whoscored.com/Matches/1485459/LiveStatistics/England-Premier-League-2020-2021-Aston-Villa-Crystal-Palace)).

So the winger clearly didn’t make much of a difference and a potential sending off for him may not have been too impactful for Villa.

**In other news, Aston Villa have been buzzing about Matty Cash’s latest tweet – [read more about it here.](https://www.footballtransfertavern.com/aston-villa-news/aston-villa-fans-worship-transfer-of-the-season-matty-cash-after-three-word-message/)**