Crystal Palace beat Manchester City 1-0 in the FA Cup final on Saturday to win their first ever major trophy, as Pep Guardiola was left cursing his side’s luck at Wembley
Pep Guardiola says that Manchester City’s players came to the conclusion that Omar Marmoush should take their first half penalty in the FA Cup final, and not regular taker Erling Haaland.
City had a chance to equalise from the spot in the first half of the Wembley clash against Crystal Palace when Tyrick Mitchell brought down Bernardo Silva in the area.
Haaland, City’s usual penalty taker, picked the ball up, but eyebrows were raised when the Norwegian then gave it to Omar Marmoush, who had never taken a penalty for City before. The Egyptian’s low kick was then saved by Dean Henderson.
That save proved vital as Palace held on to the 1-0 advantage given to them by Eberechi Eze’s 16th minute strike, while Henderson escaped a potential red card when appeared to handle outside the area under pressure from Haaland shortly before the penalty.
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On what happened to result in Marmoush taking the kick, Guardiola said: “I don’t know, I didn’t speak to them. They made a decision. They decide.”
The City boss also gave short shrift to questions about Henderson’s potential red card or his exchange of views with the Palace goalkeeper after full-time, when the pair were pictured in confrontation.
On the red card decision Guardiola said simply: “Ask the referee,” before adding that he had “nothing” to say about the post-match incident.
When he was asked about the potential red card, Henderson said: “The ball carried into my box and I knew it was fine – who cares?”
Television pundits Wayne Rooney and Ian Wright felt Henderson was fortunate though, and were both aligned on their belief that the goalkeeper should have seen red.
On BBC Sport, Rooney said: “It’s 100 per cent red card, how can they get this wrong? Haaland’s about to knock it around him. There’s no debate, it’s outside,” Rooney told the BBC.
“Just get rid of VAR. It’s rubbish. They have made a mistake and now they are trying to cover up. It is a red card and everyone can see it’s a red card. To come out with all this rubbish…”
Meanwhile on ITV, Wright said: “How they can say this isn’t a goalscoring opportunity, it’s absolutely pathetic. It’s crazy, he’ll tap that pass and tap it into the goal. It’s all rubbish, he’ll knock it past him, the rules? To confuse us, that’s supposed to be a sending-off.”
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