An unhappy Marco Silva criticised the VAR official, Tony Harrington, by claiming that anyone who has played football would be “100% sure” to disallow Manchester City’s controversial second goal in Fulham’s 5-1 defeat at the champions. Erling Haaland, who scored a second-half hat-trick, admitted he would be “fuming” in the Cottagers’ place.
Nathan Aké’s header came with the score level in added-time of the first half at Etihad Stadium. Manuel Akanji leaped over the ball from an offside position and appeared to be in goalkeeper Bernd Leno’s line of vision. Yet Harrington confirmed that he ruled Akanji was not impeding Leno, and had also judged the Swiss not to have touched the ball.
