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ETIHAD STADIUM, MANCHESTER –"So, what are you going to ask me about? The penalty?"
It's not usually the player who asks the first question in a mixed zone interview situation, but Bernardo Silva was very keen to lay down the terms of engagement. Manchester City had just slumped to a dispiriting 2-2 draw at home to Nottingham Forest, a result that allowed Arsenal to pull seven points clear of Pep Guardiola's side in the Premier League title race.
City led twice, through Antoine Semenyo's seventh goal in 12 games since joining in January and Rodri's first Premier League goal since May 2024, and the serious knee ligament injury he sustained four months later. But brilliant efforts from Morgan Gibbs-White and Elliot Anderson earned a share of the spoils for relegation-threatened Forest on a night when Arsenal ground out a 1-0 win at Brighton.
Erling Haaland, short of his best after a brief ankle injury lay-off, took a tumble under a challenge from visiting goalkeeper Matz Sels when the score was 2-1. Neither referee Darren England or the VAR elected to intervene in City's favour.
"So, if Erling is running, and the goalkeeper just crashes into him, what can he do, just disappear?" Silva enquired, still in question mode. "The goalkeeper can just crash into someone? He's not going to shoot the ball because the goalkeeper comes at him. So what, he disappears? I just think that all the 50/50s this season have gone against us. All of them. And it's quite frustrating. Because at the end, it makes a big difference in the title race."
It's the lot of soccer writers in England that players will have done interviews with television rights holders, radio stations and official club channels before they trudge past us and have phones thrust under their noses. You can leave an interview and think "that quote's golden", only to then realise it was all over TV 10 minutes earlier and has gone viral.
Silva's outlandish and completely unprovable claim about 50/50 decisions in City matches was one of those moments. He'd already said the same to broadcaster TNT Sports and those quotes were around the world, around the same time as Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler lambasted perceived cynicism in Arsenal's playing style. It was a night for post-match spikiness.
How many points have Man City dropped from winning positions?
Of course, City's captain, as a veteran of six successful title races in Manchester, knows this. Say the line, Bernardo. Get that lapped up, deflect a bit of attention. But Silva also knows that the officials were not to blame for dropped points. City have now shelled 13 from winning positions in the Premier League this season, something that will surely weigh heavily in the final analysis.
"It's quite frustrating, just because they didn't create much. Whatever they created, they scored," he said. "The first goal is an unbelievable goal from Morgan. The way he finishes, it's quite surprising. So I would say in these type of situations, we clap and that's it. The second action frustrates me a little bit more because we don't defend well. There's a clear one-two where we don't follow the movement. At the end, when you don't do the basics well, you got punished."
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To the untrained eye, Anderson's one-two with Callum Hudson-Odoi before a sublime finish looked like a wonderfully sharp piece of play. "It’s not sharp enough," Silva responded. "It's not sharp enough for you to be beaten, so it is what it is. Mistakes happen, we go to the next one, but we need to defend those actions better.
"It’s on us that we didn't win, that we conceded the goal in the last minute against Chelsea, for example, at home, that we didn't win against Brighton at home, that we were winning 2-0 against Tottenham away and we let them come back into that game. Today, twice we were leading and we let them come back. So that's all on us.
"It definitely puts us in a worse position. Still nine games to go for us, which is a long way. But yeah, we're not happy, obviously. We wanted to be closer to put a bit more pressure on them. This feels a bit frustrating and worse for us. If we look at the games that we have, it's going to be a tough job."
When is Man City's next Premier League match?
City's bid for honours on four fronts and the international break at the end of March means their trip to face West Ham on March 14 is their only Premier League match until they return to London to take on Chelsea on April 11. A title race coming to the boil must now simmer in the background as Guardiola's men face Newcastle United in the FA Cup and Real Madrid across two legs in the Champions League, before a Carabao Cup final against Arsenal on March 22 that could have a serious ripple effect.
With stalwarts of the Guardiola era such as Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Kyle Walker and Ederson all now departed, much of the leadership burden rests on club captain Silva in a crunch period for a new-look squad.
"There's no point in looking back now and crying; we need to go for the next game," he added. "We have a young team and it takes time to learn these things or to experience these things.
"We have [other] players that have been in this position. In terms of the guys that have been here for a long time, Rodri, Ruben [Dias], even Erling, some guys that were on the bench like [John] Stones and [Nathan] Ake. [Gianluigi] Donnarumma was not here, but he knows what it is to be in this position. And there's always a chance for young guys to show their personality, their character, and it's going be fun until the end of the season.
"I would say that in these few weeks we're not going to win a lot, but we can lose a lot. So this month can keep us alive, apart from the Carabao final, obviously, the rest of this month can keep us alive to fight for the competitions until the end. Hopefully, we will still be in all four of them in a month's time."
Even with the Premier League title race out of City's hands mathematically for now, Silva knows their destiny rests on the shoulders of those inside Guardiola's dressing room more than they ever will on any refereeing decision, 50/50 or otherwise.
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