Is it better to be lucky or to be good? Even though they were down to 10 men, Manchester City were able to squeak past Fulham with the help of the referee and an obvious Kevin De Bruyne dive.
You know, I honestly think it is better to be lucky than it is to be good. Sure, Manchester City are one of the best teams, but they are definitely also one of the luckiest teams in the Premier League.
I could name countless times when Man City was trailing by a goal or were level and had played poorly all game long, but they got out of jail by either a silly deflection, defensive error by the other team, or a mental lapse that gives them a win they didn’t deserve.
Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t know why you wouldn’t as they have literally won two Premier League titles off last-minute, lucky goals.
Did they really deserve to beat Queens Park Rangers back in 2012 with Aguero’s last-second winner after trailingly for a majority of that match, even though City came into the game as the league leaders and QPR was fighting relegation?
Or what about last season as they were down 2-0 against Aston Villa all game long, but managed to score 3 goals in 10ish minutes off deflections, Villa defensive errors, and mental lapses by Steven Gerrard and his team? Again, they came into that game the league leaders with Aston Villa languishing under the incompetent reign of Gerrard.
Anyway, that’s enough about Man City’s lucky history as their game against Fulham was far less dramatic than all that.
Essentially, this game came down to two huge moments…which also happened to be huge referring mistakes.
After going up 1-0 from a Julien Alvarez rocket into the roof of the net in the 16th minute, Manchester City had a free kick just a couple dozen feet outside of the 18-yard box. De Bruyne whipped in a teasing ball that was meet by Rodri as he guided a header on goal, which Fulham keeper Bernd Leno barley managed to keep out.
Unfortunately for him, he palmed the ball right to the feet of John Stones, who smashed it in to give City a 2-0 lead…until it was ruled out for offside. I’m still a little skeptical as to if it really was offside, but that’s not where the controversial decision occurred.
Nope, the game completely changed immediately off the ensuing free kick as Leno booted the ball down the field, it bounced off Nathan Ake’s chest and then fell to Vinicius. He then sent Harry Wilson in on goal as the City defenders had not yet to come back from the no-goal celebrations, but Wilson was’ brought down’ by Joao Cancelo in the box and the ref called for a penalty and sent Cancelo off.
First, Cancelo’s challenge was never a foul as he merely shoulder Wilson off the ball. The Welsh midfield should have been stronger on the ball, and the ref should have realized that and not called a penalty on the play. Second, why is the ref giving out a red card AFTER he already called for a penalty? I thought double jeopardy was no longer a thing in the Premier League.
It is really cheap to not only call a stupid penalty on a player that didn’t even do anything wrong, but then also send him off after already punishing him.
Nevertheless, Andreas Periera, the former Manchester United midfielder, stepped up and slotted the penalty past Ederson’s right to silence the Etihad crowd and level the game 1-1.
Even though Fulham, who have been a revelation under Marco Silva this season, deserved to get something from the game at this stage, it shouldn’t have been through that penalty. It was a jammy penalty that would never get called 99/100 times if it happened in midfield.
Anyway, the game played out as one would have guessed with Manchester City dominating possession (71%-29%), racking up 16 shots, quadrupling Fulham in completed passes (717 vs. 295), completing an impressive 91% of their total passes attempted.
That’s honestly incredible considering they were down a man for nearly 75 minutes.
But, the other controversial moment came in the 93rd minute with City pressing for a game winning goal. After already having another goal waved out for offsides ten minutes earlier, City drove the ball down the left wing through Bernado Silva. With time running out, he whipped in a cross into the box which KDB controlled and settled.
As he tried spinning into a better shooting position, Fulham’s Antonee Robinson barley grazed a trailing leg off the back of KDB standing foot, which obviously sent the 155 lb. flying to the ground. Because…of course it did.
If you couldn’t already tell, that was sarcasm. De Bruyne dove faster than a dive bomber in the midst of a battle as the referee, who was obviously more than happy to call willy-nilly penalties, took the bait and called another ridiculous penalty with less than a minute to go.
I don’t know whether to blame KDB or the ref more in this situation as it was the Belgium midfield who egregiously dove to get an underserved call, but then the ref happily obliged him and made it a penalty. Though, what I can agree on is that Bernd Leno never stood a chance of stopping Erling Haaland on the PK as the Norwegian phenome slotted the ball right beneath Leno to win the game 2-1 for City.
Despite the horrific refereeing decisions, this was a very enjoyable game to watch. Manchester City managed to keep up their title changer against Arsenal as they have retaken 1st place, while Fulham continues to show that they are done with the days of ‘yoyoing’ between the Premier League and the Championship.
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