Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish frustrated by controversial calls in Man City defeat

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has hit out at two key refereeing decisions that went against his side after watching the Eagles let a two-goal lead slip to lose 4-2 at Manchester City on Saturday.

Patrick Vieira’s team raced out of the blocks at the Etihad Stadium, going 2-0 up thanks to a John Stones own goal and a thumping Joachim Andersen header. City bounced back after half time, though, with Erling Haaland netting a hat-trick and Bernardo Silva getting on the scoresheet to complete the turnaround.

However, with the score at 2-0, Palace had a goal disallowed when referee Graham Scott adjudged that Odsonne Edouard had blocked Ederson’s roll out before the ball had left his hands prior to Jordan Ayew finding the unguarded net.

Erling Haaland also caught Joachim Andersen in the head with his foot in the first half

Haaland went on to score a second half hat-trick as City came from behind to beat Palace

Shortly afterwards, Haaland caught Joachim Andersen in the head with a high boot, but he avoided a red card. Parish took to Twitter after the final whistle to voice his frustrations with the two first half calls.

‘Fair enough Man City played very well today in the second half and congrats to them, but two big decisions went against us today – Its very difficult to understand how this was disallowed – the ball has clearly left the keeper’s hand in the direction he wanted it to,’ he wrote alongside a video of Palace’s disallowed goal.

Parish’s thoughts, particularly on the disallowed goal, were shared by a number of fans online.

Palace chairman Steve Parish was angry that two big decisions went against his team

‘That’s honestly one of the most ridiculous disallowed goals I’ve ever seen, he’s not even looking at Ederson?’ one supporter added.

‘How is this a foul??? Ederson shouldn’t roll the ball out with a bloke in front of him if he doesn’t want it blocked,’ another fan posted.

Meanwhile, another supporter compared the incident involving Ederson with Loris Karius’s error for Liverpool in the 2018 Champions League final against Real Madrid, when Karim Benzema blocked his throw and the ball rolled into the net. They also felt that City should have been reduced to 10 men for Haaland’s dangerous tackle.  

‘Ederson first half a Karius moment and it was called a Palace foul. Should’ve been 3-0 to Palace.

‘Then Haaland does this 5 minutes later & nothing. City should’ve been 3-0 down and playing with 10 men. Instead Haaland scores a hat-trick in their comeback win,’ they wrote.

‘Haaland kicking somebody in the face and not even getting a yellow card and then Palace having a 3rd goal disallowed because Ederson threw the ball into a Palace player. There’s no bias though, promise,’ another furious fan wrote on Twitter.

City’s comeback win moved them on to 10 points after four matches, leaving them two points adrift of early pace-setters Arsenal, whereas Palace have now picked up four points from as many games, but have already faced three of last season’s top five.