Raheem Sterling believes Manchester City players are being “butchered” by some of the tackles meted out this season.
The forward’s claim comes in the wake of West Bromwich Albion’s Matt Phillips’s scything challenge on Brahim Diaz towards the end of City’s 3-0 win on Wednesday night at the Etihad Stadium. Earlier in the contest Kevin De Bruyne had to jump over a James McClean lunge. Despite still being caught he was able to help create and score City’s second goal.
Both Phillips and McClean were booked by the referee, Bobby Madley, despite each challenge appearing a potential red card. This all followed Leroy Sané suffering ankle ligament damage in last Saturday’s FA Cup win at Cardiff City after a tackle from Joe Bennett. Again, he received only a yellow card from the referee, Lee Mason. There have also previously been other bad challenges on Pep Guardiola’s side.
Asked about how he and team-mates can be fouled in this manner, Sterling said it was a problem for other players too. “There are going to be challenges that are badly timed and probably not all of them are intentional but at the same time if it’s a dangerous tackle, it’s a dangerous tackle and I think the referees and officials need to cut these tackles out because as you can see some of the players are getting butchered out there and it’s sad to see,” the forward said.
“I just feel we need to try and cut this out of the game – I find it a bit unfair at times.
“I feel that we haven’t been protected enough in certain situations. Some of the challenges have been awful. It’s not what I expect to see in a top-flight football match – especially when teams are losing and just go out to kick players.
“I do think we need to cut down on that because we’ve got a World Cup at the end of the year and majority of the players in the top-flight and in our team will be playing in it and it would be sad to see someone miss the tournament due to a silly tackle and someone get away with it. These tackles can happen – but it can’t be every game we’re getting two players coming in with injuries.”
