Aston Villa's Tyrone Mings tweets angry reaction to controversial Manchester City goal

Tyrone Mings has branded the law that allowed Manchester City's controversial opening goal against Aston Villa on Wednesday evening to stand as 'nonsense'.

Villa had defended resolutely for the first 79 minutes and were poised to take a point off Pep Guardiola's side, before Bernardo Silva gave City the lead in contentious fashion.

Rodri was standing comfortably offside when Bernardo Silva's headed clearance was sent in his direction. Mings checked his shoulder, made the interception and brought the ball down, before the Aston Villa defender was then robbed by Rodri, who came back from an offside position to dispossess him and feed Bernardo Silva for City's opener. Villa went on to lose 2-0.

BT Sport pundit and former top flight referee Peter Walton admitted he initially thought the goal should have been disallowed, but having received clarification from the Premier League, he explained why it was allowed to stand.

"A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent and deliberately plays the ball is not considered to have gained an advantage," Walton told BT Sport. "Therefore Mings playing the ball deliberately plays the Manchester City player onside, even though he's in an offside position. Therefore the goal should stand and he wasn't gaining an advantage by being where he was."

It's as simple as that.

Like many of us, Mings was bemused by the fact that a player in an offside position has actually been played onside by him intercepting a pass to prevent the ball running through to said player in an offside position.

"Never even heard of that rule, just let players stand offside, then run back & tackle you?" Mings wrote on Twitter in response to Walton's explanation. "In hindsight I should’ve cleared it, 100%, but didn’t even know that was the case. Nonsense."

Villa boss Dean Smith was slightly less diplomatic than Mings, telling BT Sport at full time: "It's farcical. He was 10 yards offside and came back and tackled our player, it's a pathetic law and a pathetic decision."