Manuel Pellegrini saw his side succumb 2-0 to Spanish champions Barcelona on Tuesday night, before giving his view on the match, and in particular Swedish referee Jonas Eriksson. On the whole, the Chilean was disappointed with the Swede’s performance, especially considering he has made an “important error” against Barcelona when he previously refereed the Spaniards.
“He refereed the game, Barcelona v Milan – he made an important error against Barcelona. Today, he rearranged.”
“Well, I think the referee decided the game. Before the penalty, it was a foul on Navas – he was a few metres away, so he saw it and it should have been a costless-kick".
“I thought it was not a penalty – it was outside of the box. To play for 40 minutes without a player against Barcelona is very difficult.”
“Since the beginning,he [the referee] didn’t give a good impression – he was decisive in this game. Even so, the team played with courage, with personality and tried to draw the match with ten men.”
The Chilean was pleased with the showing his team gave, on a night where it was made even tougher by the red card for Demichelis.
“We played very well, we tried to draw level but then they scored the second goal in the last minute”.
“Barcelona didn’t have any chances to score in the match until the penalty.”
“It was important to continue playing the way we did and try to score. With one player less it was very difficult to score but we had two or three chances to do it.”
“Silva forced a very good save from Valdes, Clichy had a good chance and the referee gave a foul when Dzeko had a clear chance.”
All quotes taken from http://www.mcfc.co.uk/
