De Bruyne Knee Injury Mars Man City Win

Everton’s Phil Jagielka said referee Martin Atkinson was “a little bit arrogant” as the controversy over the referee’s role in Everton’s League Cup semi-final loss to Manchester City continued on Thursday.

“It did happen quite quickly but the way things have gone in the last few games, people can’t see offsides and people can’t see the ball out of play”.

But Martinez said: “Everyone that has seen the replay can clearly see the ball is out of play”. That second goal affected the outcome too much.

“When you watch the replay it’s incredible that you don’t get that decision right”.

“The ball was out of play, I’m pretty speechless”.

“When it ends up with the second goal, you can imagine the major blow it has in our feelings, our performance and our chances to get through”.

Everton won the first leg of the two-legged semi-final 2-1 at home and made the ideal start here on Wednesday when Ross Barkley fired them 1-0 up after 18 minutes to extend their advantage.

The momentum was all with the hosts after that and they secured victory with a fine glancing header from Aguero.

But Pellegrini is not concerned about a lack of cover for De Bruyne and says the way City have coped with the absences of David Silva and Sergio Aguero at different stages of this season shows they do not need to panic-buy before Monday’s deadline.

“I think the rest of the squad must have the responsibility to replace a very hard player to replace”.

“That was less of a mistake than the two penalties when [the referee] didn’t whistle against Everton in the Premier League and in the first leg at Goodison Park”. I trust in my squad and I hope we are going to continue to be a competitive team.

The Belgian played the role of a super-sub as he came off the bench to score an equalizer and set up the victor, but was eventually stretchered off due after landing awkardly late in the game.

But De Bruyne’s knee buckled as he fell to the ground at the 88-minute mark and he screamed in agony as he slumped to the turf. He looked in agony before being taken off on a stretcher.

“The doctor thinks, but he can not be sure, that it’s a problem in his medial ligament”, he told the club’s official site.

“Of course Kevin is a very important player for the club and now he can not play the whole season”.

Manuel Pellegrini has challenged his squad to fill the void left by Kevin De Bruyne’s injury. I am not going to discuss that at the moment.