Manchester City’s Third Goal Was Offside – Mark Clattenburg

Mark Clattenburg has stepped forward to defend Michael Oliver’s awarding of a penalty to Manchester City’s “clever” Raheem Sterling in Sunday’s 3-1 defeat of Arsenal.

“Michael Oliver was right to award a penalty for Nacho Monreal’s challenge on Raheem Sterling,” he told The Times. “It is very clever of Sterling because he slows down so that there is always going to be contact from Monreal, who cannot stop quickly enough.”

Commenting on Wenger’s insistence that Sterling “dives well,” Clattenburg added: “While he has been guilty of such things in the past, this is a foul. It is not clear-cut enough to say that every referee would have given it, but Wenger would have wanted a penalty if the same thing had happened to an Arsenal player.”

“Wenger has more justification to be annoyed about the third goal because even as a referee I thought, ‘That looked yards offside,’ when I first saw it,” he said.

“It usually comes down to a few centimetres but David Silva had one leg and a part of the body that could score a goal beyond the last man. I was surprised that Wenger was not more angry about that last one.”

“Sterling’s in possession of the ball, Monreal comes across, barges into him,” Gallagher told Sky Sports. “You could argue he’s in on goal, he hasn’t made a clear attempt to play the ball. It could well have been a red card. It’s definitely a penalty.”