Manchester City striker Erling Haaland took to social media after Dan Burn got under his skin during Newcastle’s 2-1 loss at the Etihad Stadium. Haaland needed to be restrained after Burn grappled with the striker and prevented him from finding the net. Burn received a yellow card early in the match and succeeded in completing the full 90 minutes without being dismissed despite committing three fouls.

Burn also endured a physical evening and not only was the England defender pushed into an offside position by Ruben Dias on a free-kick which he managed to nod home before seeing the flag raised, a bad challenge from Bernardo Silva saw Burn struck in the chest with the Man City player not shown a second yellow card following an earlier caution. The images of Burn being floored by Silva went viral with Newcastle far from satisfied with some of the refereeing decisions.

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Haaland took to X following the match to share an image of Burn tugging his shirt with a caption: “Another day in the office.” Nevertheless, Newcastle were frustrated by the fact that referee Thomas Bramall and the VAR officials did not sanction City after Malick Thiaw was caught in the face by Haaland with his arm. The officials deemed the incident as the striker “not using his arm as a weapon”.

When questioned about the referee’s decisions, Howe stated: “I don’t think we were on the right end of the decisions today, but I don’t want to go down that road. I’m not one of those managers that wants to continually criticise officials, but I thought, again, it was one that we probably didn’t get the right end of the decisions.”

Pep Guardiola was full of praise for Newcastle as the City boss said: “Newcastle is an incredible team, awesome in physicality and speed they have up front. Physicality in the middle. It was really tough but the team was unbelievable.

“Every action, [Dan] Burn, Joelinton, they put flat ball in behind, it’s a really tough team. I have incredible respect for that team. Winning three times in a row [against Newcastle], in a few weeks we gave to go there again [in the FA Cup], what a nightmare.”