Man City 2 – Tottenham 2
Manchester City dropped their first points of the new season on Saturday.
Pep Guardiola’s side played host to Tottenham in Saturday’s late Premier League kick-off.
City dominated the game, having 30 attempts on goal compared to Spurs’ three attempts.
Despite City’s dominance, though, the game finished 2-2, as Erik Lamela and Lucas Moura’s goals canceled out strikes from Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero.
KDB on handball rule
Manchester City did think that they had won the tie in the dying minutes, when Gabriel Jesus put the ball in the back of the net.
However, the goal was disallowed, as Aymeric Laporte was adjudged to have handled the ball before it made its way to Jesus.
While the handball didn’t look intentional, the new handball rule meant that it was correctly disallowed.
ESPN have recently explained said rule:
The handball law now says that if a player creates a goal-scoring opportunity by the ball hitting their arm, even if accidental, then it’s an automatic infringement .
With that goal being ruled out, VAR/the handball rule has been taking the headlines amongst both pundits and players:
“That should never on any playing field or in any country anywhere be disallowed.”
Danny Murphy’s given his view on Gabriel Jesus’ disallowed goal against Spurs.pic.twitter.com/UGqReP8itX
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 18, 2019
Today’s VAR decision is really hard to take. Any attacker that commits handball, intentional or not, is now ruled a free kick?? And if you’re defending it’s fine?? It only disadvantages the attacking team.
In my opinion this rule needs to be changed. #MCITOT pic.twitter.com/TtPsB96FD0— Ilkay Gündogan (@IlkayGuendogan) August 17, 2019
Man City’s Kevin De Bruyne has also spoken about the rule:
“It is what it is.
“If they want to make football better they should have it. But I think the only thing – the rules should be clear. If the ball had touched somebody of Tottenham’s arm it’s not a penalty, but if it touched our arm it is not allowed.
“It should go both ways in something like that. I don’t understand that as a player. It makes it really confusing.” As quoted by Sky Sports News.
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