Sven slams Citizens display
31 Mar 2008 - 08:50:40
Sven-Goran Eriksson refused to blame referee Rob Styles for his Manchester City side's 3-1 defeat Birmingham City at the weekend.
Styles handed the Citizens a soft penalty which Elano converted to make the score 2-1, but the match official then evened things up by awarding the home side an even more dubious spot-kick.
Gary McSheffrey netted from 12 yards to seal the win for Birmingham, but Eriksson accepted that his side had been well below-par at St Andrew's.
He said: "I feel the referee got it completely wrong regarding Birmingham's penalty, but before blaming the official, we should blame ourselves very much.
"If we want to talk about European football next season, we can't lose as many balls as we did. Even when we were under no pressure, we gave the ball away.
"We should have done much better than that. If you concede two goals like we did, you will also never win a game in the Premier League.
"For Birmingham's first goal, we have a throw-in and ten seconds later they have a man in behind us who scores.
"The second goal was crazy as well. They have a goal-kick and three touches later they have scored.
"I thought our penalty was a harsh one and gave us a chance to get back in the game, but that chance died when they scored their penalty."
