Well that sucked. (City 0, Arsenal ‘3’)

How Alex Song remained on the pitch after two clear bookable offenses in the first half is beyond me. What an utter joke.

Moments after Gareth Barry was booked for a similar challenge, Song came in late and over the ball, taking down David Silva by planting his studs into his ankle. To the disbelief of everyone in the City of Manchester Stadium, Song was not booked:

Just 19 minutes later, Song committed a second bookable offense, hacking down Silva. This time Clattenburg produced a yellow card:

So instead of 10 on 10 for the final hour, Arsenal continued to enjoy a man advantage. There’s plenty of outrage today over Andre Marriner declining to send off Gary Neville, but at least he didn’t go on to score like Song did near the end of this one.

Clattenburg & Co. finished off a stellar afternoon by missing the ball going over the touch line and an offside on that last Arsenal goal. Other than that, it was yet another fine job by the officials.

The joke of it all is that it was Arsenal goalkeeper Łukasz Fabiański turning in a Man of the Match performance against 10 men. Until eventually tiring at the end, you wouldn’t have known City were down a man if you missed the sending off. They consistently created good scoring chances, but the Polish keeper made a number of very strong saves to keep his side in front.

I’ve seen some articles in the UK papers calling Dedryck Boyata’s sending off “controversial,” but it was a textbook case of the last man back denying a goal-scoring opportunity. I have zero argument with that decision. If only the same could be said for the rest of Clattenburg’s day.