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Cristiano Ronaldo ‘Offside’ Shows Massive Inconsistency After Man City Vs Aston Villa

Cristiano Ronaldo ‘Offside’ Shows Massive Inconsistency After Man City Vs Aston Villa

Juventus attacker was flagged for exactly the same thing that one City player got away with - so what exactly are the laws?

Alex Reid

Alex Reid

Football fans are pointing out a huge flaw in the offside law after Cristiano Ronaldo was flagged offside on the same night as Manchester City scored a controversial goal against Aston Villa.

In Juventus's 2-0 win in the Italian Supercup, Ronaldo was coming back an offside position when Napoli's Giovanni Di Lorenzo cut out a Juve pass - Ronaldo flicked the ball away from him and the officials immediately flagged CR7 for interfering with play.

It wasn't even protested. But during Man City's 2-0 win over Aston Villa, the deadlock was broken with a move that started the same way - and officials have insisted it was the correct call.

That began when Tyrone Mings intercepted a City forward pass and Rodri - running back from a blatantly offside position - dispossessed the Villa defender and set up Bernardo Silva to open the scoring.

Villa protested and manager Dean Smith was even shown a red card for implying the officials were clowns.

Yet a strange quirk of football's rules means that this was, technically, the correct decision. As ex-ref Peter Walton explained on BT Sport, when Mings took his touch the passage of play 'reset' and Rodri was no longer offside.

However naturally fans were pointing out that the decision in Italy to flag Ronaldo as offside - on the very same night as the City vs Villa game - was in direct contrast to that.

So what exactly are the rules and how should they be enforced?

Mings called the rule "nonsense" post-match, tweeting: "Never even heard of that rule, just let players stand offside, then run back & tackle you? In hindsight I should've cleared it, 100%, but didn't even know that was the case. Nonsense."

Plenty of fans are equally baffled, especially in light of Juventus vs Lazio being halted.

"Just watching the Supercoppa Italiana game and this was just given as an offside against Juve," tweeted one fan. "How is this different to the decision given against #avfc tonight? EXACTLY the same."

Juve went on to win anyway - Ronaldo becoming football's all-time highest scorer in the process - but clearly this part of the offside law is being interpreted very differently in Italy and in the Premier League. Over to you, UEFA.

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Topics: Manchester City, Football News, Aston Villa, Football, Serie A, Tyrone Mings, Premier League, Juventus, Cristiano Ronaldo