‘It’s a joke that it can be allowed’ – Manuel Akanji slams offside decision for Manchester United goal vs Man City

Manuel Akanji has slammed the match officials for allowing Bruno Fernandes’ goal to stand in Manchester City’s Premier League derby defeat to Manchester United.

Leading through Jack Grealish’s second goal of the season, City were ten minutes away from completing the double over their rivals, but were pegged back in controversial fashion as Marcus Rashford was played in on goal when he was clearly offside.

Rashford continued his run, occupying Akanji, until Bruno Fernandes took over at the last minute to lift the ball over the advancing Ederson from under Rashford’s nose. As Rashford didn’t touch the ball, despite being offside, the goal was allowed to stand, and the striker scored United’s winner four minutes later.

ALSO READ: Guardiola makes Old Trafford and Anfield comparison after Man City offside call

Akanji was closest to Rashford, and altered his run to attempt to defend against the United number 10 rather than move closer to Fernandes to close the ball down – allowing the goalscorer the space to score.

Speaking to BBC Sport after the game, Akanji couldn’t hide his fury, by describing the decision as a joke and questioning why VAR did not take a look after the assistant referee initially flagged Rashford offside.

“To be honest for me the first goal is a joke that it can be allowed like this,” Akanji said.

“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.”

Fellow centre-back Nathan Ake also agreed with Akanji’s assessment, telling BBC Radio Manchester: “It was very frustrating. I think from my point of view he is interfering with play. For the goalkeeper, for our defenders it is difficult to see what they can do because he is still there a second before Fernandes shoots the ball.

“He definitely interfered, in my opinion, but the referee gives it and after that we lost our way. We tried to maybe force it straight away to get back into the game but we left ourselves too open for the counter-attack and they were waiting for that.”

READ NEXT: