Manchester City Still Seeking Top Gear Despite Champions League Progression

They always say that a referee has done a good job if he isn’t seen. For the official to stay unnoticed for 90 minutes means there have been no dodgy decisions, no contentious calls and nobody feeling aggrieved.

That mustn’t have been made clear to Cuneyt Cakir, who appeared to have deployed his Random Decision Generator as he took charge of Manchester City’s 1-1 draw with Borussia Monchengladbach on Wednesday evening.

It started fairly well, as a few rough-and-tumble challenges were let go. City felt a little upset that the refereed hadn’t whistled for a foul on John Stones for the opening goal of the match, as Lars Stindl seemed to shove the centre-back out of the way when breaking through. He crossed for Raffael to smash the ball home. But it wasn’t an outrageous decision, and the defender could have done better.

Things then took a turn for the frustrating, when Sergio Aguero was twice penalised for fouls he could do little about. On both occasions, the defenders in front of him stopped dead in his tracks, forcing the Argentinian to run into their backs. And the official pulled him up on it.

Finally, Cuneyt Cakir might be known for something other than sending off Nani. What was that for?!

— Sam Lee (@Sammy_Goal) November 23, 2016

The game began to take a stop-start pattern, as every little bump and barge was being penalised.

Stindl got his comeuppance later on, though. Having just been booked, he blocked off Nicolas Otamendi as the centre-back challenged for the ball. The referee felt he had no choice but to show the German a second yellow—but a stern talking to and a final warning wouldn’t have been unacceptable, especially with Otamendi’s overreaction to the foul.

Cakir saved his strangest decision for 12 minutes later. There could be no disputing Fernandinho’s first yellow card—a cynical pullback to prevent a Gladbach breakaway—but his second appeared to be for nothing at all. He seemed to just run straight past his opponent, which was enough for the official to blow and produce a card.

Anyone know why Fernandinho’s been sent off?!

— Simon Bajkowski (@spbajko) November 23, 2016

The referee let Aleksandar Kolarov get away with a late challenge on the edge of the home side’s box and only showed a yellow to Raffael for a studs-up, two-footed challenge that left Ilkay Gundogan in a heap.

Frankly, it was a miracle a game of football happened in between all of the official’s decisions—and if this was his attempt at staying …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com