Champions League: Manchester City 4-3 Tottenham Hotspur, 3 reasons why City were knocked out

#2 VAR has come to the Champions League

Fernando Llorente has kept his hands as close to the body as possible, but that still doesn't mean that the goal should stand.

It should be the least of our concerns but let's be honest, Spurs weren't going to go through without the VAR. It is good to have the technology to avoid errors but this was really toying with Manchester City's emotions. The emotions of the players who had left it all on the pitch for 90 minutes, the emotions of the fans who were shouting at top of their voices.

Llorente's goal was highly controversial, and it was utterly preposterous to be allowed as a goal. The ball swung in towards him did not get a clear contact from him. It seemed as if it came off the elbow and then deflected onto the thigh. Llorente's arm snapped back which shows that the ball had contact with some part of the arm. Now, Llorente did not stick the arm out or anything but a goal coming off the arm is a disallowed goal, and there should be no card for it. VAR gifted that goal to Manchester City. Next year, under the new rules, a goal coming off your arm, intentional or unintentional, will not be a goal.

Then came the offside. Yes, Sergio Aguero was offside. But Christian Eriksen passed it back. No Manchester City player touched the ball apart from a totally unintentional deflection from Bernardo Silva. There were no complaints from the Tottenham players, no appeals for offside, City were off to celebrate but VAR disallowed the goal. In this case, it is a 50/50 maybe. In case of defenders, the offside rule is applicable when the ball deflects off the defender and not applicable if it is a deliberate play. Therefore it only makes sense that the opposite is true for attackers. A deliberate pass attempt should be termed as offside, not that deflection yesterday. Again, it is due to the faint clarity of rules on VAR.

However, if I am the referee or VAR and I encounter a 50/50, I give that to Manchester City yesterday. It is almost criminal to toy with the emotions of the players and the fans.