• Premier League

Nasri blames referee for Kompany red card

Samir Nasri has defended Vincent Kompany as the Manchester City captain waits to discover if he will face an FA charge that could rule him out of the Manchester derby.

Kompany was shown a red card for bringing down Hull striker Nikica Jelavic and will serve a one-match suspension in Saturday's home game against Fulham, and appeared to make an offensive gesture as he left the pitch.

But the FA are waiting for referee Lee Mason's report, which they should examine on Monday, and if they take action against Kompany for the gesture he made as he left the pitch, he risks being banned for the game against Manchester United on March 25.

Nasri argued that Jelavic should have been penalised first as City, who had Pablo Zabaleta sent off in Barcelona on Wednesday, went down to 10 men again.

"Again, it was a mistake from an official because the first foul was on Vinny and he took a red card, so for 80 minutes we played with 10 men," Nasri told the Manchester Evening News.

"The first foul was from Jelavic on Vincent, and he was just trying not to let him go one-on-one with [goalkeeper] Joe [Hart]. Of course it's a foul, but the first foul was on Vincent."

Nasri believes City showed their fighting spirit to take three points despite playing virtually the whole game with 10 men.

"When your captain gets a red card, you just want to show that you can do it without him and as well do it for him. You want to fight to the end and that's what we did," he added.

"Do we only need 10 men? I don't think so but it was good to show everyone that we are back on track, that when everyone plays for the team, it doesn't matter if we have 10 or 11, we can win games because we have quality."

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