Pundit Ally McCoist has praised Manchester City star Ruben Dias for his ‘refreshing’ reaction to the controversial refereeing decision at the end of the game with Tottenham Hotspur.
City and Spurs played out a 3-3 draw at the Etihad Stadium, but there was a big decision that went against City in the final moments.
Erling Haaland had the ball and was challenged by Emerson Royal. The Norwegian went to ground, but immediately picked himself back up and carried on playing.
Referee Simon Hooper played advantage but when Haaland then played Jack Grealish through on goal, he brought play back, robbing Grealish of a potential chance to score.
There was real anger about the decision, with Haaland particularly livid. But Ruben Dias gave a more measured reaction, which impressed McCoist…
Ally McCoist praises Ruben Dias for mature reaction after Manchester City 3-3 Tottenham
The decision was a very difficult one to understand, especially because Hooper had initially played advantage. It made very little sense as to why he then brought play back.
The frustration from City was very understandable.
But ultimately, the performance wasn’t good enough and £180,000-a-week defender Dias appeared to acknowledge that with his post-match verdict. He said: “Obviously, we can talk about chances that we need to make goals out of, we can also talk about goals we can’t concede but in the end it’s a mix of all of it.
“The feeling we will leave the pitch with today is a bit of a frustrating feeling. I think all of us know the team was there for today and unfortunately, we didn’t get the three points.
“I can be proud of what everyone did because everyone did everything to win the game today.”
Reacting, McCoist said on talkSPORT this morning: “You know what’s cheered me up this morning? Listening to Ruben Dias. that has cheered up, absolutely. In an age where there’s a lot of finger-pointing. I thought his reaction, when he said ‘yes the referee made a mistake, but that’s the way it goes’… I thought it was magic. There was something refreshing about it.
“Did he make a mistake? You better believe he made a mistake. Manchester City players and supporters and Pep are entitled to feel aggrieved and a little bit disappointed. However, it was just an honest mistake, let’s get on with it.”
A terrible decision
It was a baffling call from Hooper to bring play back having initially played advantage.
But what’s done is done and City and Pep must look internally. The performance was not good enough against Spurs, with wastefulness again a big factor in the end result. As pundit Gary Neville suggested, some complacency may well have crept in at the moment.
Ultimately, you need to put yourself in a position where mistakes from officials are not going to affect you. Ideally, the officiating standards would drastically improve, but City need to take care of what they can control.
Hooper’s call was extremely frustrating. But City could have been out of sight by half-time and the focus needs to be on getting that cutting edge back, and also becoming more solid again at the back.
