Manchester City boss, Mark Hughes, has launched a scathing attack following his side’s defeat at the hands of rivals, Manchester United. Hughes was not happy at the amount of time that was added on in the Manchester derby as Michael Owen scored the winning goal in the 96th minute.
Hughes launched the attack after the game in a match that City did not really deserve to get any thing out of. Two of their three goals only came because of bad errors in the United defence and Craig Bellamy, who scored two of the, should not have been on the pitch after a stamp on Anderson in the first half.
Hughes said: “The guy shouldn’t have been on the pitch. That’s not acceptable. I remember Brian Clough (the former Nottingham Forest manager) clipping someone round the earhole because he was being daft and maybe that’s what Craig’s done.”
“We feel robbed. The fourth official tried to give me an explanation because I was questioning the amount of time that was being added on even before the game finished, but his explanation didn’t sit comfortably with me.”
“He tried to say he had added a minute plus because of our celebration [for the third goal]. We actually scored right on 90 minutes and the board was already up for four minutes. We timed the amount of time from when we scored to when they kicked off and it was 45 seconds, so they got that wrong. They actually scored after 95 minutes and 28 seconds, so he has obviously played too much time and he went on to play 97 minutes.”
“When I played here I thought we had a bad time by referees, but since I left I have changed my view. I’m not going to question the referee’s integrity. I just want an explanation. I just can’t see where he got that time.”
Despite Hughes’c comments very few fans around the country will sympathise with him because of the consistently bad way that his club and himself continue to behave. What Hughes forgot when he was making his speech is that the fourth official also has to add time on because of substitutions and three were made during injury time, adding another 90 seconds to the game. This took the match time to 95 and a half minutes, within which Owen scored.
It is unknown whether the FA will ask Hughes to explain his attack but had the shoe been on the other foot then he probably would have been a lot quieter.
