Barcelona midfielder Sergio Busquets has blasted Manchester City for blaming their 2-0 Champions League loss on Tuesday night on the referee.
City were reduced to ten men when Martin Demichelis slid in on fellow Argentine Lionel Messi early in the second half at the Etihad Stadium which prompted anger from the home side as the tackle began outside the box.
Nevertheless, Messi dusted himself off to give the Catalan giants the lead before the visitors took advantage of having an extra man by scoring late through Dani Alves.
After the match, City boss Manuel Pellegrini blasted referee Jonas Eriksson and his match officials for a poor performance but Busquets believes they are simply excuses from the losing side.
"The excuses when you lose are for losers," he told reporters. "Is better [to] forget and focus on the next match."
Busquets added: "I think that the referees make mistakes frequently. Sometimes those mistakes are good for you and other times are bad.
"They give more importance to an error on our behalf, in any game or any result. That happened a few days ago against Manchester City.
"You have to leave the referees do their job. Sometimes their mistakes will be on your behalf and some others not."
