Referee Michael Oliver consulted with his assistant and decided that Akanji wasn't seeking to gain an advantage, despite feinting to get the ball and raising a leg, which seemed to influence Leno. ROB DRAPER AT THE ETIHAD: Erling Haaland scored a remarkable seventh hat-trick of his extraordinary Manchester City career but even his performance was overshadowed by a hugely controversial decision with the game finely poised at 1-1, when a Nathan Ake goal was allowed to stand despite Manuel Akanji standing well offside in the line of Fulham goalkeeper Bernd Leno. He obviously wasn't available and getting his head right for the long months before January will now require a master motivator. They were already without their best player, Joao Palhinha, who had spent Friday night in Munich, posing in Bayern kit before his dream move fell through. And Fulham are not in that place at present. Taking on the treble winners at The Etihad is not without its challenges at the best of times. They don't make the rules, but given a foothold into a game after a lacklustre first half, they don't hesitate to take advantage. For excellent though they were for 45 minutes and five minutes of injury time, when they game went against them, illogically to most minds, they capitulated, allowing the emotion of the moment and its seeming injustice to overwhelm them. The miserable have no medicine other than hope so Fulham had no chance, for their hope was extinguished in the cruellest of circumstances. Equally, if Erling Haaland can score a hat-trick and provide an assist in a game in which, apart from that hat-trick and assist, he was unremarkable, then you can hazard a guess that you're going to struggle. And if the refereeing gods are also going to be capricious to the point of absurdity, really there is no contest to be had. MANCHESTER CITY 5-1 FULHAM - ROB DRAPER AT THE ETIHAD: As flies to wanton boys are mid-table teams to Manchester City: they kill them for their sport.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |