In many ways it was a tale of two penalties in our 2-1 defeat to Manchester City one New Year's Day. One not awarded for Martin Odegaard in the first half, and one given for Bernado Silva in the second.
After the game a clearly dejected Aaron Ramsdale questioned only one of the debatable spot kicks were watched again by the referee at the touchline.
City's equaliser from the penalty spot altered the momentum of the game after an excellent first half display, and once we were down to ten men following Gabriel's red card, the team turned in a resilient defensive performance.
All that good work was undone by Rodri's late, late winner, but despite ending pointless, Ramsdale said the side could take pride in the performance.
Here's a full transcript of his post-match interview.
on the result…
Yeah, it’s a tough one to swallow, we played so well, defended so well with 10 men, unlucky ricochet really and it falls to them and gets poked in. We’re deflated, but we’ve got to swallow it and move on because that’s football and we’ve got an important semi-final first leg coming up on Thursday.
on going wrong in the second half…
Yeah, I don’t think many teams have done that against Man City for a while, what we did in the first half, we dominated I thought and then like you say, five minutes, penalty, red card it changed the game, but even then down to 10 men I thought we defended really well and a little unlucky ricochet turns the game on its head.
on City's penalty…
I felt it was soft. The linesman said he didn’t think it was a penalty, but then they get told to go and check it by VAR. I’m more annoyed about the fact that they didn’t tell them to check ours in the first half on VAR. The referee might have said ‘no penalty’ anyway, but in game time, both times it was ‘no penalty’ for them and us, but he gets to go and check there’s and not ours. That’s where my frustration is, the inconsistency between one decision and the other.
on VAR…
Yeah, well the referee said no penalty, like you say goes to the screen, it’s slowed down and you can see things and stuff, but if that was given for us we wouldn’t be having this chat, but the fact that he’s been told to go and see the screen for one and not ours, that’s my frustration, because if he thinks it’s a penalty on the screen then it’s a penalty, but we didn’t actually get the chance to see ours.
on taking positives…
Huge amount of positives, like I said, not too many teams have dominated Man City like that more in the first half than we did it. We played really well in the second half and we need to try and get over the line in one these big games, but at the start of the season when it’s 4-0, 5-0, Liverpool, City, today’s a massive step in the right and like I said, we need to win one of these games, but ultimately we know we’re not challenging with these guys at the moment, but on today’s basis, if we can put that in week in, week out, we can be.
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