The opening Manchester derby of the 2026\/27 season quickly lost any sense of calm, with the contest turning tense and confrontational almost immediately.<\/p>\n
The decisive moment was reviewed by VAR before the dismissal was upheld. The official check concluded: \u201cThat looks like a clear red card to me. Looks to be a secondary movement. Confirming the red card for Manchester City No. 47.\u201d<\/p>\n
That intervention left little doubt about the decision and underlined how sharply the derby changed shape in its earliest stages. What began as the season\u2019s first meeting between the two sides was soon defined by the flashpoint, with the red card becoming the central talking point.<\/p>\n
For Manchester City, the incident marked a damaging early setback, while the tone of the match shifted at once. The derby\u2019s reputation for intensity was reinforced again, and this time the officials were required to make a quick but significant call.<\/p>\n
With VAR confirming the dismissal, the focus moved squarely onto the nature of the challenge and the consequences for Manchester City. In a fixture where emotions are rarely far from the surface, the first major decision ensured the game would be remembered for its heated opening passage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Phil Foden\u2019s red card quickly set the tone in a feisty opening Manchester derby after VAR confirmed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19390,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,2024],"tags":[1836,59,180],"class_list":["post-19391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-refereeing","tag-2026-27-premier-league","tag-featured","tag-player-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}