Get the day's biggest City stories delivered straight to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Manchester City should be used to being denied penalties; Manuel Pellegrini insists on it in training!

In the last month, Sergio Aguero, Jesus Navas and Raheem Sterling have all felt they should have had spotkicks that could have changed the complexion of three matches.

While the Blues coach might have cause to be miffed about those decisions, he consciously coaches his players to negate the influence of the referee - by punishing anyone in his squad who complains about a tackle on the training pitch.

“Sometimes I am the referee, sometimes it is Ruben [Cousillas] and sometimes it is Brian [Kidd]," he told the Sunday Mirror , "but the players know every day that we are all very bad referees.

“We deliberately make mistakes, so that when we play the official game the players are not thinking about the referee.

“There are fouls that we won’t whistle for because we don’t want the players to stop and make complaints. We want them to continue running.

“We try to prepare a player’s mind in that sense because, when a referee makes a mistake, is an important part of the game.

“When it happens you have a hot head, but you must continue playing.

“If the players complain in training we have punishments. It will be push-ups or laps of the pitch.

“I have always done this throughout my career.”

“The players learn to keep playing until they hear the whistle and not to react badly when the referee makes a mistake.”