Leicester City’s Marc Albrighton makes his point to the referee after the penalty award against Atletico Madrid
City go into next Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg at the King Power Stadium looking to overturn a one-goal deficit after their controversial defeat in the Spanish capital.
Referee Jonas Eriksson awarded the crucial spot-kick midway through the first half, despite the challenge having taken place outside the box.
‘It would be nice to see video trialled’
The assistant referee on the goal-line may not have spotted Eriksson’s clanger, which had shades of Atletico’s controversial penalty in the first leg of City’s 1997 UEFA Cup defeat in the same ground when Steve Guppy was penalised for a challenge on Delfi Geli, but video technology could have shown Eriksson that the foul should have been a free-kick on the edge of the box.
“I think there is people looking at that and it could only be good for the game,” a philosopgical Albrighton said afterwards about video technology.
“It would be nice to see it get trialled and see how it works out, but we can’t dwell on it too much.
“My first thought was not to let him in the box because he is dangerous, I felt like I had to bring him down.
Marc Albrighton brings down Atletico’s Antoine Griezmann
“It has proved costly but we have to make sure we don’t dwell on it. There are enough officials, I don’t know who has made the decision but, at the end of the day, the final decision lies with the referee and it has cost us.
“It is disappointing from my point of view and the lads’ point of view but we have to move on.”
Despite the defeat, Albrighton said City were still right in the tie and believes Atletico will not be relishing the return in Leicester next week.
“Obviously, we came to win the game,” said the winger. “We want to win every game we play, we knew it was going to be difficult.
‘We will be more aggressive’
“Overall, 1-0 is not a bad result. We would have liked to have got an away goal.
“We have to understand that 1-0 is not a bad result, we are still in the tie and they won’t want to come back to the King Power.
“We will be more aggressive in our play going forward and take a couple more chances. We are going to have to.
“We got to a point at 1-0 where we felt let’s hold on to what we have got and just stay in the tie and get back to Leicester.
“Before the game, they would have liked more of a cushion going back to Leicester. I think the important thing for them is they have won the game and they have not conceded an away goal, they will be pleased with that.”
[“Source-leicestermercury”]
