Manchester City goalkeeper Claudio Bravo has questioned referee Aleksei Kulbakov's decision to send him off during the 1-1 draw with Atalanta at the San Siro on Wednesday night.
The former Barcelona stopper was shown a straight red card in the 81st minute of the game after he was adjudged to have brought down Atalanta's Josip Iličić just outside of the penalty area as he bore down on goal.
Having already lost first-choice goalkeeper Ederson to injury, Kyle Walker had to step in as the Cityzens keeper for the remaining six minutes. The right-back by trade became only the third outfield player ever to play in goal in the Champions League and was dropped straight into the action, collecting the resulting free-kick from Ruslan Malinovskyi at the second time of asking.
The Chilean goalkeeper took to Twitter to subtly voice his frustrations and seemingly questioned the referee's decision not to award a yellow card for simulation as there seemed to be minimal contact between Bravo and Iličić, despite the Slovenian international taking a tumble into the penalty area.
He simply tweeted a question mark alongside a video of the Slovenian forward vaulting over him,, as if to say 'how was this a red card?'.
Arsene Wenger came to the defence of Bravo, telling beIN Sports: "The Atalanta player should have received a yellow card [for simulation]. It was not a red card."
VAR was used to check the legitimacy of the red card, and a decision was taken not to overrule the on-field referee, to the surprise of many.
Manchester City's manager Pep Guardiola will no doubt be scratching his head at the decision to send Bravo off and will be looking to put Wednesday's disappointing result behind him.
Raheem Sterling opened the scoring for the visitors within the first seven minutes after slotting past Atalanta's Gollini, however Gabriel Jesus was unable to put the game to bed following a poor miss from the penalty spot in the first-half.
A win would have seen Guardiola's side progress into the knockout stages of the competition, although City remain five points clear at the top of Group C and can qualify with a win over Shakhtar Donetsk on the 26 November.
Source :
90min
