Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has played down claims of his team losing two points to Tottenham Hotspur because of a refereeing error.
Both teams have given Premier League fans some of the best football in recent years. Sunday night’s action was no different. Spurs went ahead in the sixth minute through their captain Son Heung-Min who then helped City restore parity by scoring an own goal.
Both teams attacked each other and created a number of chances. In the end, all they could do was settle for a draw and share the spoils. They now sit in third and fifth place in the 2023/24 Premier League standings.
Another controversial refereeing call from the game is making the rounds, adding to a growing list of Premier League refereeing errors in the 2023/24 season alone. This time around, Man City man Jack Grealish was clear on goal after referee Simon Hooper played the advantage following a foul on Erling Haaland, only to change his mind while Grealish was only yards away from goal.
Guardiola attributed the decision to the human tendency to make mistakes and insisted that his team dropped the ball instead.
“I make mistakes, the players make mistakes,” Guardiola said after the game. “It surprised me that in the moment when Erling goes down in the action from [Ben] Davies it was fine but in the right moment he stand up and the referee make the gesture to play on.
“After he made the pass he stopped the game. I don’t want to criticise them.
“In the touchline sometimes I lose my mind, my gesture was not proper. As a manager, I am not the guy when I am refreshed to comment.
“We didn’t draw because of that. They are happy, we are a little bit less happy.”
Guardiola then mentioned that his team have played a similar style of football for a while which allows them concede a lot and chase games in an unfamiliar manner.
“The performance was quite similar to what we have done lately,” he continued. “The people say you’re concerned about goals you concede of course but the chances we concede, nothing.
“For our mistakes and quality for opponents we concede a goal and it’s still more difficult. There are still a lot of games. It happened lately, let’s go.
“In good moments, the team won’t be defined. It’s not the first time we are in this situation where we are playing good but results don’t come.
“In our first season we were playing good but we could not get results. The only medicine from time as a player was when you are playing at the level we are playing, insist and insist and the rest will happen.”
