Platt blames referee for loss

Manchester City assistant David Platt believes bad refereeing decisions cost his side in their 2-0 loss to Everton on Saturday.

Goals from Leon Osman and Nikica Jelavic sealed victory for Everton, who were forced to play the last half an hour with 10 men after Steven Pienaar was sent off for a second bookable offence.

Platt said City were far from their best, but believes referee Lee Probert failed to award his side a clear penalty.

Marouane Fellaini handballed in the area but Probert awarded a free-kick thinking it had been outside.

“From where I was live, I didn’t know whether it was in the area or not. He’s just played it back to me. It’s not even on the line, it’s three yards inside. People can draw their own conclusions from that,” he told Sky Sports.

“Perhaps our performance didn’t deserve it … maybe we could have got more out of the game if decisions had gone for us.”

Manchester United remain 12 points head of City, and Platt seemed resigned to the English Premier League title going to Old Trafford this season, but insists the team still have a job to do.

“Nobody has been shouting from the rooftops saying we’re chasing Manchester United down. They’ve got a significant points advantage over us, even if we won the game today it still would have been 12 points, you’d expect them to win at home today anyway,” he said.

“But we’ve still got an obligation between now and the end of the season, whether it’s mathematically possible, which it is at this time, or not, to go out, be professional and win football matches”

Everton manager David Moyes was understandably buoyant following the victory that he felt reminded the club’s fans of the team’s quality after their loss to Wigan in the FA Cup.

“We were very good, and we have been for just about the majority of the season,” he said. “We’ve had one or two dips here and there, but that was certainly more like us today.

“I never thought that Everton were away. I thought that we had a bad performance which we’ve been reminded of by the supporters, and rightly so, we didn’t play well enough.

“But I think we’ve just reminded them that they’re actually supporting a really good team.

“We’re playing the champions of England at this present time, they’re second in the league.

“We’re not going to always be able to out pass them, outplay them, but we had to make sure that when they did have the chance to do that, when it went to 10 men, that we’re hard to beat and we did so.”