Mark Halsey’s explosive claim he was “told” to lie while he was a Premier League referee was met with a mixture of shock and defiance on Sunday amid calls for an inquiry by Gary Neville.

Halsey posted on Twitter that he had “seen an incident and been told to say I haven’t seen it” following the three-match ban handed out to Sergio Agüero that will see the striker miss Saturday’s Manchester derby.

The 55-year-old was referring to an incident he had already recounted in his 2013 autobiography, in which he claimed to have felt “under pressure” from his boss, Mike Riley, to change his mind over his decision not to send off Steven Nzonzi for “two supposed elbows” during a game between Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers in 2011.