Fulham head coach Marco Silva described the decision to allow Nathan Ake’s header – despite Manuel Akanji being in an offside position in front of Bernd Leno – as ‘a huge mistake made by people who have never played football’.

Silva, who has been highly critical of refereeing standards and the implementation of new directives this season, was furious that the video assistant referee allowed Michael Oliver’s awarding of the goal to stand and received backing from Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, whose hat trick made the scoreline much more emphatic in the second half, after the final whistle.

Speaking to the BBC’s Conor MacNamara, the Fulham boss said:

Of course the moment for the second City goal made a huge impact in the game, but in terms of the rest, a very good first half from us. The way the players stuck to the plan, the way we played most of the time was good. When we won the ball, with better decisions we could even have created some more problems for them, because we did in some moments.

Unfortunately it was not enough to go in at half time with a good result, which was not our fault. Second half I didn’t want a huge, huge, huge mistake from the officials to make an impact on ourselves. It was the first thing I said to my players at half time: I asked my players to react, we cannot control these situations.

“It has happened too often in our games and we end up being punished ourselves. We have been really unlucky since the start of the season in these situations. They feel it because they are human beings. It feels like every week, the same story. A bad decision from the linesman and then someone in the office to not disallow this goal is incredible. It is clear it is a huge mistake from people who have never played football and don’t understand about football.

If you are in the [VAR] office, how can you say that player [Ake] doesn’t have influence in the goal or the goalkeeper’s decision? If the ball goes in the direction of the player, the goalkeeper just dives if the player moves. When the player moves, of course it is a moment before the goalkeeper dives because the people goes in the direction of that player. The ball goes inside the goal. It is clear, clear offside anywhere in the world.”