Daniel Farke has become the latest manager to lose his cool over the officiating of Manchester City, receiving a red card in Leeds United’s 1-0 defeat on Saturday.
Following Eddie Howe’s comments last week that Newcastle’s defeat to Manchester City “was one that we probably didn’t get the right end of the decisions”, Leeds United’s Daniel Farke had a more emotional reaction to a similar situation on Saturday.
Farke raced over to the referee and his assistants at full time, pointing the finger and shouting, and he was quickly shown a red card.
Speaking after the game, one of Farke’s assistants explained that the manager was primarily frustrated by the officials’ failure to add on the right number of minutes after plenty of City time-wasting.
“We had six minutes added time,” Leeds assistant Edmund Riemer said. “If you’re chasing the game and see the opposition doing what all teams do and waste time – they got booked for wasting time – then you can add a few seconds more.
“You’re emotional. The explanation is going to be that he is overly emotional. We’d wish for a more sensible reaction from the referee, to give a yellow card.”
Howe, Farke, and his assistants are far from the only ones to complain about the officiating of Manchester City this season, with Brentford’s Keith Andrews complaining about a missed red card for City, and Sean Dyche demanding an apology after Ruben Dias avoided a red against Nottingham Forest.
Dyche did get his apology later, with the PGMOL admitting they got that one wrong.
The added time wasn’t the only thing that went City’s way, with the team also escaping a penalty after a handball by Matheus Nunes.
VAR judged that the player’s arm was in a natural position, but such judgements haven’t always applied in these incidents.
The incident was reminiscent of another penalty call at Elland Road against Arsenal, with the ball landing on William Saliba’s arm in a game in 2022. It wasn’t intentional, as Saliba had clearly expected the ball to deflect off the Leeds attacker’s head, but the contact was obvious.
The penalty wasn’t initially awarded that day, but VAR ultimately ruled that a spot-kick should be given. This time around, VAR chose not to intervene.
It was a month ago now that Rodri accused the referees of being biased against Manchester City, and there still hasn’t been any resolution to his FA charge. But it certainly seems like they’re getting all the decisions they want right now.