‘Cheating’ Manchester City At It Again

There’s never a dull moment at Manchester City. If they’re not cheating off the pitch in relation to Financial Fair Play, paying agent fees when they’re not supposed to or committing Human Rights crimes, they’re now doing it on the pitch too.

This, of course is according to opposite supporters, and mainly relates to City coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Swansea to progress to the FA Cup semi-final. At 2-1 down, it seemed the blues were heading out in a shock result. However a dubious penalty award, a fortunate own goal and an offside winner has sent opposing supporters into complete meltdown, some of which may never recover from.

Then there are those that accused the blues of cheating their way into the last four.

Swansea played their absolute hearts out yesterday, and looked a shadow of a mid-table Championship side. They pressed the blues, and won a fair penalty when Fabian Delph lunged in and single handedly attempted an assist in putting City out of the Cup for two seasons in a row. 1-0 became 2-0 with a goal that was straight from the Pep Guardiola textbook, and all credit must go to them for a fantastic performance. It is true that they didn’t deserve to go out to an offside goal in that manner, but sadly these things happen in football – they always have done and will continue to do so until VAR is implemented across the board. Even then, there’s no telling whether calls will still be right, but hopefully most of them will.

Bernardo Silva’s brilliantly executed finish dragged the blues back into the match, when really they just wanted to get home and into the warmth on a cold, wet and windy day in South Wales. So inconsiderate of the Portugese midfielder, who has turned into one of City’s best and consistent players this season, but it was an excellent finish.

Then came to controversy. Raheem Sterling, cited by so many for diving over the last few seasons, went to ground under a challenge and the referee pointed to the spot. Replays showed the defender may have got the ball before the man, but due to someone making a decision not to have VAR outside Premier League grounds, the referee didn’t have the benefit of a replay so went with his first instinct. Of course, the award was completely down to Manchester City cheating.

When an attacker runs into the area as Sterling did, he has two choices – one is to stick the ball in the net himself, while the second is to find a pass to a teammate. If he gets his leg clipped, he’s going to fall, and it is then up to the referee to decide whether or not the defender got the ball or not. That isn’t Sterling’s fault, but it hasn’t stopped some from saying Sterling dived, but let’s not facts get in the way of City cheating again. Aguero’s penalty hit the post, then the keeper and into the net to draw the blues level, before the Argentine striker scored the winner.

The striker was marginally offside as the ball is played in, and once again it is down to the officials to get that right. With seconds to act, Aguero isn’t exactly going to look down the line and ask himself ‘Am I offside here?’ As a striker, he’s going to go for the ball first and stick it in the onion bag, then ask the question. After the goal, he looked to the linesman before celebrating his winner.

But regardless of the above, it is City who have cheated. They clearly flouted the rules of the game and blatantly played to the whistle, when what they should be doing is stopping the flow of the game to ask questions like ‘am I offside?’ ‘If I go to tackle this player, will I get the ball?’ and the old favourite ‘should we stop scoring now?’

Same old City, always cheating!