Ruud van Nistelrooy fumes over 'unthinkable' decision in Leicester City's loss to Man United
Ruud van Nistelrooy was left incensed after Leicester City were knocked out of the FA Cup by Harry Maguire’s offside header.
The former City centre-back met a free-kick in the third minute of added time to send Manchester United into the fifth round and consign van Nistelrooy to another defeat. But replays showed Maguire was clearly offside when the ball was delivered.
With no VAR until the next round of the cup, and with the assistant referee keeping his flag down, the goal stood. The City manager described the decision as “unacceptable and unthinkable”.
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He said in his post-match press conference: “It’s a hard one to take because the game was decided on a mistake. It was clear. It was not a matter for VAR where you have to look at millimetres. It was half a metre. It was clear.
“The team didn’t deserve to lose in this way. They fought, they played well, they dominated the game for a long bit, leading 1-0. That’s how you feel after this.
“You can’t turn it back. We have to live with it. We’re all humans and make mistakes, but at this level it’s not good enough.
“When you prepare the whole week for this game and are reacting after the Everton loss and put in a performance like that and it’s been decided on a clear and obvious mistake, that is unacceptable and unthinkable at this level. But it happens to you. We have nothing else to do but pick ourselves up from this. That is not what the team deserved.”
Van Nistelrooy felt like his team’s performance at least merited extra-time at Old Trafford, which they were on their way towards. Bobby De Cordova-Reid had scored just before half-time, with Joshua Zirkzee equalising just after the hour.
The City manager will at least walk away with the positive of having seen his team improve their performance from the 4-0 loss at Everton. He wants that level to be replicated in City’s relegation battle.
“For me the general performance was a big positive,” van Nistelrooy said. “After Spurs there was hope, the hope was back. After Everton, the hope was gone. We wanted a reaction after that.
“We said we weren’t good enough against Everton. We showed today that that was an incident between two very good performances against Spurs and United. Also, the belief that we are capable to compete against the best teams away from home as well, that’s the way forward. When we are consistent in that, and that’s our goal, then we can compete at this level.”
