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.
Silva said: “Everyone that has played football, who has some knowledge of football, knows 100% sure to disallow that goal. For the [assistant referee] it can be difficult to see an offside position, but for VAR it is impossible not to disallow that goal. That moment had a huge impact on the game.” Haaland added: “I think it was offside as well – I feel bad for them. I’d be fuming if I was them.”
City then pulled away from Fulham, Haaland scoring his fifth Premier League hat-trick in the second half. Julián Álvarez opened the scoring and Tim Ream equalised. Ream said: “Whenever someone is standing in front of the goal [and] the ball goes directly at him and he has to jump over the ball it is offside. He was offside to begin with and then when he has to jump over the ball too, it is frustrating when that doesn’t get called.”
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Jack Grealish was not in City’s matchday squad due to a thigh injury that could rule him out of involvement with England. Juanma Lillo, City’s assistant manager, said: “It’s going to be difficult for Jack to make it, but I’m not a doctor.”
Of Aké’s goal Lillo referred to Jayden Bogle’s strike for Sheffield United against City in last week’s 2-1 win. “It’s good it happened [today] because two similar things have happened [now]. At Sheffield United, we thought he was offside [but] when they gave us the explanation they said it was about being in line with the ball. I believe today our player was less in line than against SheffieldUnited.”
