Man City star Bernardo Silva defends referee despite 'very, very bad' decision vs Tottenham

Bernardo Silva moved to defend referee Simon Hooper after his late error in Manchester City's draw with Tottenham, but he did describe the decision as 'very very bad'.

City fell behind against Spurs on Sunday but hit back immediately and led 2-1 and 3-2 going into injury time. But Dejan Kulusevski's header earned the visitors a point, although they could have left the Etihad with nothing had Hooper not pulled play back for a foul on Erling Haaland when Jack Grealish had been sent through on goal in the 94th minute.

Haaland made his anger towards the decision well-known, while Pep Guardiola indicated he believed Hooper was wrong not to wave play on, but the manager stopped short of further criticism to spare himself any punishment from the FA. Speaking in his own post-match interview, Bernardo said that the decision was poor and could have cost City the three points.

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However, Bernardo did accept that the mistake was a human error, and pointed to City's own mistakes in the game - such as Haaland missing two good chances, their questionable defending, and Julian Alvarez's misplaced pass that led to Tottenham's second goal.

"It is a bad decision and everyone saw it," said Bernardo. "But at the end we are all humans.

"The referee probably is the first one to know it was a very, very bad decision because he [Grealish] was one-on-one with the keeper and it could have given us the three points. It is a tough one to take, but in the end it is what it is, it's football, and sometimes people make mistakes.

"If we did our job properly, which is kill the game, or at