Manuel Pellegrini accused Manchester City’s Bernardo Silva of ‘throwing himself down’ to the ground after a contentious penalty call saw his West Ham side defeated at the Etihad.
Bernardo won a spot-kick on the hour mark after tangling legs with Felipe Anderson, which Sergio Aguero converted for the game’s decisive goal.
Pellegrini conceded that there was contact between Bernardo and Anderson but believed that it was not enough to warrant referee Stuart Attwell whistling for a foul.
“I’m not happy with the result because it was not a penalty,” he told the BBC’s Match of the Day.
“Bernardo Silva threw himself down when he felt a touch. [Manuel] Lanzini had the same thing but didn’t go down, so the referee didn’t whistle.
In his post-match press conference, when asked whether he felt the decision was ‘soft’, Pellegrini said: “Soft is being a little generous.
“It was a play that happens a lot of times inside the box. In the other box, Lanzini had exactly the same and he didn’t throw [himself] to the floor.
“If we had lost this game with another action then maybe we could accept it, but not that penalty.
“The first save of Fabianski was minute 61. After that they had a couple of chances. If you lose the game with those options maybe you can accept it more.”
Pellegrini, who was returning to the Etihad for the first time since stepping down as the manager of City in 2016, otherwise felt his side came close to picking up an unlikely point.
The Chilean suggested that City were time-wasting towards the end of the game as they sought to secure a 1-0 win which keeps them within one point of leaders Liverpool.
“It’s not easy to stop Manchester City. Also, it’s not normal to see Manchester City trying to delay the game in the last four minutes to win 1-0,” he said.
“We played very well in defending and not so well in attacking because we didn’t have the possession we want to have.
“Especially when we played this game with eight players injured and four players we rested for the game on Saturday.”
