Chelsea handed immediate VAR verdict after two incidents in Aston Villa clash

Ollie Watkins was marginally offside when he thought he fired Aston Villa back into the lead against Chelsea. However, Joao Pedro's strike on the stroke of half time was allowed, as he was only just onside.

The first half at Villa Park was a pulsating experience for all in attendance. Douglas Luiz, a January transfer window target for the west Londoners, opened the scoring by putting the finishing touch on a free-flowing team move.

Liam Rosenior's side saw a close-range header from Pedro be saved exceptionally by Emiliano Martinez, not long after the Villa goal. The Brazilian did go on to find the net when he slid in to the six-yard box to poke Malo Gusto's zipping cross into the back of the net from close range.

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Both sides found the net again soon after, but had completely different end results. After Reece James gave the ball away with a slack half, Villa counter-attacked through Morgan Rogers and Watkins.

Their end-to-end move was finished off by the latter, who shot through Filip Jorgensen to send Villa Park crazy. However, VAR intervened, to the horror of the home supporters, as the automated offside system said the England international was offside by a tiny margin.

Not long after the ex-Brentford forward's strike was chalked off, the Premier League Match Centre explained the verdict on social media. It wrote: "VAR checked the referee’s call of goal – and established that Watkins was in an offside position and recommended that the goal was disallowed."

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