Haaland doesn’t even reach anywhere near the ball, and he started the hold first. They are not even maintaining subtlety anymore. For any other team apart from City, I can bet it was not a penalty.

It boggles the mind.

Haaland hauls Cucurella back which leads to him being ahead of the defender. Then the defender pulls him back and the ref gives a penalty.

Yesterday, for Burnley’s goal Koleosho (i think) and Tomiyasu were both pulling each other’s shirts. Rather than give a foul one way or the other, the ref didn’t give either player a foul and Burnley ended up scoring. I said it at the time and I’ll sa it again now: you CANNOT give a foul there.

However, today one player commits a foul. The other player commits the same foul back and the ref punishes the 2nd player and ignores the initial foul.

It’s absolutely shocking and disgusting. However, it’s EXACTLY what we expect when Antony Taylor is refereeing. He is an absolute joke of an official.

Also, the VAR should be overruling the ref there. But i’m sure it’s more financially rewarding not to do so.