Gary O'Neil has his say on Wolves mistakes and penalty decisions

A number of individual errors handed the hosts chances and goals, as Wolves wilted at the Etihad.

And O’Neil was keen to point out that his side’s errors were the sole reason for the heavy defeat.

“We, and I, have to take responsibility for how the game unfolded,” O’Neil said.

“We made a lot of errors in the game, unforced ones as well, which gave Manchester City some really good chances.

“The second goal, losing the ball how we did. The last goal, losing the ball how we did. The goal straight after we scored where we’re late on the pressing phase.

“Mistakes against this team can be punished and they were. They punished us ruthlessly.

“I’ll talk about the decisions with you, but I’m keen to state that the officials have no real part to play in the way the game ends up.

“We’re fully responsible for the performance and the mistakes that we make to give Manchester City such a lift.”

Rayan Ait-Nouri gave away the first penalty in a coming together with Josko Gvardiol, while Nelson Semedo caught Erling Haaland for the second penalty which was eventually given after a VAR check.

“The first penalty was a really poor decision,” O’Neil added.

“I can sit there and say how poor my team were in certain moments with some errors, not in application or determination, or effort – just some really poor errors.

“But I thought the awarding of the first penalty was terrible. Gvardiol probably plays as big a part in the contact with Rayan, as Rayan does.

“He has his shot and his leg is still moving through, and his motion probably creates the contact with Rayan as much as Rayan. I don’t know what Rayan is meant to do in that instance, he can’t vanish.

“You don’t see them given very often when the shot has been hit over the bar and there’s a coming together. It was a strange one.

“The second penalty was a penalty.

“I was surprised how they reached it, though, I thought on-field they would give that.

“But then surprised it was overturned. There was contact with Nelson but not much, so I was surprised it was deemed clear and obvious, but they do reach the right decision on that one, to be fair to them.

“There should have been a potential check on Akanji’s handball, I thought. There was not much made of that. I heard the Wolves fans appeal for it but I was quite far away from it.

“When I saw the replay, he’s on the floor and seems to punch the ball away with his hand.

“But, as I say, there’s so much for me to focus on within my own group.

“You can get away with some mistakes against other teams, but we knew when we came here we’d need to be as close to perfect as possible and we fell short on numerous occasions.”

Mario Lemina came off at half-time during the defeat, but the head coach hopes he has avoided injury with a hamstring complaint.

O’Neil said: “He felt tightness in his hamstrings and didn’t feel he’d be able to push 100 per cent in the second half.

“With how tough the second half was going to be, I thought it was important to make a change.

“Hopefully Mario will be OK, but he felt some tightness in both hamstrings.”

When asked if it was precautionary to take Lemina off, O’Neil added: “I hope so and he seems to think so.

“It would have been a risk to send him back out.”