As time ran out and the score was 0-0, it seemed that Manchester City were once again denied at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Despite the visitors’ dominance of the game, City squandered good chances and it looked like it was going to be a repeat.
Until Kevin De Bruyne crossed following a corner in the 88th minute and Nathan Ake scored the winning goal with the ball bouncing six yards out, allowing City to progress to the next round of the FA Cup.
However, the goal caused some controversy, with Guglielmo Vicario claiming that Ruben Dias had fouled him in the build-up to the goal. Indeed, it appeared that the City defender had jumped into the Spurs goalkeeper as the ball arrived, but VAR ruled that it was not a foul.
Postecoglou admits Spurs were hanging in the game:
It’s never easy to swallow such a late defeat, but Ange Postecoglou was pretty condescending in his post-match press conference (via Football.London).
On the late goal, Postecoglou said: “I guess that aspect is disappointing. It happened so late and it doesn’t give you a chance to recover from it. We fought hard to stay in the game but to be honest that’s all we did, we stayed in the game. It wasn’t enough to get over the line today.”
And when asked about the VAR’s decision to award that goal, he added: “Well, the referee took a good look and the VAR took a good look and decided differently, so we have to accept that.”
He is right that we did not do enough to make it look like we were going to win the game and it is really disappointing to be knocked out of the cup in this way. Nevertheless, it was certainly a foul on the goalkeeper, at least in the light of recent precedent in the same situation.