'He's offside!' - Pep Guardiola reacts to derby day winner at Old Trafford
The Manchester city gaffer thought United's winning goal shouldn't have stood.
Last updated 15th Jan 2023
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola suggested that the Old Trafford crowd influenced decisions after his side were beaten 2-1 by bitter rivals Manchester United on derby day.
Fans were left outraged after Bruno Fernandes cancelled out Jack Grealish’s opener in the 78th minute of a dramatic derby on Saturday and rows continued into the tunnel after Marcus Rashford compounded City’s frustration by grabbing a late winner.
City players complained and urged officials to check replays of the critical moment. There were raised voices after the final whistle and after players had left the field, the PA news agency understands.
Controversy erupted after Fernandes’ goal was allowed to stand despite Rashford having been in an offside position, and appearing to race on to Casemiro’s through-ball, in the build-up.
However, the England forward did not touch the ball before making way for Fernandes to shoot and, after speaking to assistant Darren Cann, referee Stuart Atwell awarded the goal, deeming Rashford had not interfered with play.
“The first goal is a joke it can be allowed,” defender Manuel Akanji told BBC Sport. “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.
“He runs for 30 metres, he’s chasing the ball. It’s clearly offside. In the situation, I played him (Rashford) offside, but he plays until the last second. I understand he doesn’t touch the ball, but for me it is clearly offside.”
Pep Guardiola was convinced that Rashford’s actions constituted interfering with play – though he expects decisions to go against his side when playing at Old Trafford.
Asked about United’s equaliser, Guardiola told BT Sport: ‘Well Rashford was offside, Bruno Fernandes was not. Intervene Rashford or not?
‘Distract our keeper and distract our central defenders? The rule is… I don’t know the rule. But I know where we play.’
United boss Erik ten Hag disagreed with his counterpart, though, and – unsurprisingly – saw no problem with the goal being given.
He said, “We have improved, that is obvious. There is still a long way to go but we have a lot of aspects in our game we have to improve but we are progressing"
“The fans may dream but we are not, we have to keep our feet on the ground and face that our game has a lot to improve. It can’t happen that after half-time we are losing so much control in the game.”
For Rashford it was an eighth goal in seven appearances, but at one point it did not look as though he would start the second half. He fell heavily on his hip shortly before the break, prompting Ten Hag to tell Antony to warm up, but when the Brazilian came on at half-time it was to replace Anthony Martial.
“He knows that in football you have to suffer and sacrifice and have painful moments, especially a player like he is,” Ten Hag said of Rashford. “He is unstoppable and opponents will go tough against him but he keeps going and he got rewarded and the team got a reward.”
For City this was a second consecutive defeat after the Carabao Cup defeat at Southampton in midweek, but Guardiola was happier with this performance.
“We lost the Carabao Cup a few days ago, but it’s not about losing the Carabao Cup, it was the way we lost the game, I was really sad,” he said.
“Today I said to the players, with this personality, they ran behind us a couple of times and just punished you on the counter attack, it’s the history of this club…We were close, not close enough, we missed a little bit up front, but in general with the performance I’m satisfied.”