No, that wasn't a penalty. Johan Manzambi went down in the box in the 30th minute, Peter Bankes waved it away, and Paul Tierney on VAR looked again and left it exactly where it was. They were right. The people turning this into proof of some grand officiating stitch-up are reacting to the fall, missing where the contact actually landed.
⚡ Upset:Aston Villa had a 20% chance before kickoff and beat Man City 2–1.
20%
Start with the one person on television who actually tried to defend Villa. Joleon Lescott, at half-time on TNT Sports, said "All of the decisions were right, I don't think there is any pens," before granting that this was the closest thing to a shout: "Arguably, this is probably the only one, I think if the contact is made with the leg, not the body of Anderson, there is a real shout there." The penalty only exists in a version of the incident where Elliot Anderson sticks a leg out. He didn't. By the account of the one pundit sympathetic to Villa, the contact was body on body: a coming-together in a crowded box.
Keith Hackett, who used to run the referees, was blunter. He accused Manzambi of "trying to con the referee" by "manufacturing contact," and pointed at "the exaggerated backward movement" as the giveaway. That's harsh. This was a soft shout made to look like more, thanks to a dramatic tumble. VAR exists so that soft shouts in a scramble don't get upgraded into spot kicks on a second slow-motion look.
Now the louder claim going around: that City float through games untouched while everyone else gets punished for breathing. This was the worst possible match to make that case on. City had their own appeals in the same first half, an Ian Maatsen challenge on Iliman Ndiaye and a Joao Gomes push on Enzo Fernandes, both waved away by the same referee. If Bankes is in the bag for City, somebody forgot to tell Bankes. He turned down shouts at both ends. That's a referee refusing to be bullied by noise, which is the job.
The result makes the grievance look even thinner. Villa won it 2-1. Nicolas Jackson scored twice, opening inside the first ten minutes and striking again around the hour after Erling Haaland had headed City level. The team supposedly robbed by the officials walked off with all three points and ended City's unbeaten start to the season. You cannot sell me a refereeing injustice as the story of a game the aggrieved side won.
Manzambi owns this one. He went down theatrically enough that an ex-referee and a current pundit independently described it as exaggerated or borderline at best. Villa fans are allowed to roar for it live, in the moment. Nobody is required to still believe it once the replay runs. The penalty was never there to begin with.
