Aston Villa 1-3 Newcastle

&c

Newcastle defied expectation to defeat the 13 men of Aston Villa (more on that later) in the Third Round of the FA Cup, setting up an inevitable Fourth Round tie against Manchester City.

The scoreline tells only half the tale of a game defined by a series of absolutely remarkable refereeing decisions - or in some cases, non-decisions.

It's rare that a decision will ever gain unanimous approval or disapproval, with tribal instincts usually kicking in and rose tinted spectacles being applied.

However, when Aston Villa opened the scoring, Tammy Abraham was offside, and not 'Joe Willock' offside but actually offside.

Seemingly forgetting there was no VAR to make the decision for them, the linesman opted against ruling offside on the pitch and the goal was incorrectly allowed to stand.

A howler, but mistakes happen I suppose, and besides, much worse was to follow.

Near the end of the first half, Lucas Digne launched himself studs up into Jacob Murphy's shin with reckless force - a clear red card offence, and right in front of the linesman.

Amazingly, a yellow card was produced, which would surely have been upgraded to red by VAR.

The one big decision the officials got correct came next, right at the end of the first half, as Murphy burst through unchallenged into the Villa half, with a single defender trailing in his wake and two team mates for company, only to see home keeper Bizot charging out and scything him down almost on the halfway line.

A(nother) clear red card, this one forthcoming.

Following these howlers (and two borderline fouls on Barnes and Gordon in the box, which could have gone either way), you felt as though the ref might try and even things out in the second half.

No such luck - he'd saved his worst decision for last.

Just after the hour, Trippier whipped a cross into the box, where Digne - lucky to be on the pitch anyway - jumped with his hands up and blocked the shot, yards in the box.

He was in the box when he jumped.

He was in the box when he handled it.

He was in the box when he landed.

He was in the box as he started remonstrating with the referee, who had given a- free kick?!?.

Cue absolute disbelief amongst players and coaches for what Wayne Rooney called "one of the worst decisions" he'd ever seen, and it was hard to argue, so bewildering was the mistake.

At this point, Tonali decided he'd had enough, and forced a shot home from outside the box via a deflection from the free kick, amazing for his first goal of the season.

From then we dominated and Tonali fair leathered a second home from even further out.

Nick Woltemade put the icing on his birthday cake with an opportunistic strike in the final minutes, capping of a successful day in an advanced midfield role.

So two away wins on the trot, and into the next round of the cup.

What was all the fuss about?.