Manuel Akanji was furious after the Manchester derby.
Like Man City manager Pep Guardiola, Manuel Akanji made his feelings clear after the Premier League champions were beaten 2-1 at Old Trafford.
The centre-back slammed the match officials for allowing Bruno Fernandes’ goal to stand.
City opened the scoring thanks to Jack Grealish but they were pegged back when Fernandes equalised.
Rashford was played through in an offside position – but never touched the ball – yet City think he should have been penalised regardless.
Ultimately, the goal stood because Rashford didn’t touch the ball.
Akanji was close to Rashford at the time and he couldn’t hide his fury when speaking to BBC Sport for a post-match interview. The anger may stem from the fact he was at fault for standing off Rashford.
“To be honest for me the first goal is a joke that it can be allowed like this,” Akanji said, as quoted by the Manchester Evening News. “I see Rashford, he’s clearly offside so I play him offside. He runs to the last second and stops when the ball is right in front of him and right in front of Eddy [Ederson] to score the goal. Then he stops because Bruno is calling him because he’s not offside.
“I understand he doesn’t touch the ball but he runs for 30 metres, he’s chasing the ball. It’s clearly offside.
“Also the referee doesn’t even look at the situation. When it gets explained at the beginning of the year I thought it was clearly offside. In the end it’s not offside.”
City swarmed around the referee in protest, yet he stuck to his decision to allow the goal because Rashford never touched the ball.
To make matters even better, Rashford went on to score the match-winner just minutes later.
They should learn the rules and play to the referees whistle. If players did that in a Ruby Union game they would have been yellow carded. The FA rules state that players should not speak the referee in that manner so why weren’t they dealt with