'Frustrated' Roberto De Zerbi on Aston Villa time-wasting allegations and penalty decisions - 'Not so clear'

After the visitors took the lead in the second half, it became a stop-start affair with a number of fouls and time-wasting. By full-time, seven Villa players had received a yellow card.

"Too much wasting time,” De Zerbi said. “I thought in the Premier League the people were correct, also in Italy, also in Latin countries, but it is not like this.

“I think the referee had to control the game. This work is his work. Not my work, not my players’ work, not our fans’ work. For this situation I was angry and frustrated.

“If the games are 90 minutes, during the 90 minutes you have to play, you can’t play 45 or 44 minutes.

“It is not normal to play for 90 minutes but maybe 60 minutes no?”

Alexis Mac Allister had given Albion a dream start, scoring after just 50 seconds after the midfielder dispossessed Douglas Luiz and finished past Emiliano Martinez. It was Brighton's fastest ever Premier League goal.

However, Villa responded well with Lewis Dunk bringing down John McGinn in the box for a blatant penalty. Ings made no mistake with the spotkick.

Ings grabbed his second of the game, and completed the comeback, after half-time. It came after Mac Allister lost the ball to Luiz – a role reversal from Brighton's goal. Ings picked the ball up, turned Dunk and scored via a deflection off the unfortunate Levi Colwill.

Brighton piled on the pressure, in search of an equaliser but Villa managed to hold on for the three points – Unai Emery’s second successive league win in his first two games as manager.

De Zerbi was asked if his players were affected by Villa’s antics.

He said: "No, I think we played well but we can play better, 100%. We have to work more.

"We played a good game. We didn’t deserve to lose. The players were focused only on the game.”

The Italian was reluctant to give his opinion on the match officials after two penalty decisions against his team – notably a second-half incident which saw Solly March go down after a challenge by Lucas Digne. It went to a VAR review but a penalty was not given.

“I don’t like to speak,” De Zerbi said. “I don’t like to focus [on that].

"You have to watch the game. Both penalties. First for Villa, second for us. Also first penalty was not so clear.”

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