Bernardo Silva hit out at referee Darren England and VAR officials after Manchester City’s title hopes were severely dented by Nottingham Forest.

The City skipper claimed Matz Sels brought Erling Haaland down when the home side were 2-1 ahead in the second half. But England ignored Silva’s appeals and, three minutes later, Elliot Anderson equalised for Forest, dealing City’s Premier League challenge a big blow as Arsenal went seven points clear at the top with a 1-0 win over Brighton.

Silva fumed: “The Erling incident? For me, it is a penalty. What can Erling do? This season, we are used to it, we know how it works. All the 50-50s have gone against us.”

Pep Guardiola refused to discuss the incident, and other penalty claims, saying: “I spoke weeks ago about that subject. I always believe that we have to do it much better so the officials don't intervene. It's our responsibility to do it better so we don't have to rely on them. Nothing more to say, I said it in the past.”

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And Silva agreed with his manager, adding: “Our job is to be better. These things we cannot control. What we can control is our own performances.

“It is quite frustrating because we were playing at home and twice we were leading and we couldn't keep the result. At the end we had a lot of chances, they went up twice and scored two goals. Sometimes football is like this.

“They were patient enough to punish us when they were able to counter but I feel we should have won with the chances we created. But sometimes football is like this."

After Morgan Gibbs-White had cancelled out Antoine Semenyo’s opener, Rodri put City back ahead, only for Elliot Anderson to give Vitor Pereira’s side a precious point in their battle for survival.

And Pereira was delighted with his side, saying: “It was a tough game but there was a lot of personality from my team. After five games in 15 days, it is not easy to perform at this level, but there were good moments of football, good team spirit and I’m happy with my players.

“It was important to come here and prove we can get points everywhere. It doesn’t matter if it is City or another club - it is about us believing in ourselves and proving we can play good football.”

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