Inside the Erling Haaland and Omar Marmoush penalty change decision during the FA Cup Final | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has opened up on the remarkable change of Manchester City penalty taker during the club’s 1-0 defeat to Crystal Palace in the FA Cup Final.

The Etihad Stadium club succumbed to their second consecutive defeat in an FA Cup Final on Saturday afternoon courtesy of a single strike from Palace’s Eberechi Eze early in the first-half of the Wembley affair.

However, matters could have been very different had two key moments in the game on in a different direction, the first of which being a major officiating decision that meant Selhurst Park goalkeeper Dean Henderson remained on the pitch for the duration of the contest.

Having seemed to have clawed the ball away from an onrushing Erling Haaland hurtling towards goal outside of his penalty area, VAR believed the Englishman was not denying an obvious goalscoring opportunity and as such did not deem the incident as worthy of a red card.

Moments later and City were awarded a penalty after Tyrick Mitchell took down Bernardo Silva inside the Crystal Palace penalty area, only for Erling Haaland – the club’s designated penalty taker – to seemingly hand over spot-kick taking duties to teammate Omar Marmoush.

The Egyptian – who has been a stellar arrival for Manchester City since joining from Eintracht Frankfurt during the January transfer window – saw a relatively tame effort beaten away by Dean Henderson, to maintain the scoring at 1-0 which would stand until full-time.

Speaking to reporters during his post-match press conference from Wembley, Pep Guardiola was quizzed on the remarkable circumstances that saw Haaland seemingly relinquish penalty taking duties to Marmoush.

“They decided on the pitch. I don’t know. I didn’t speak with them, I don’t know,” Guardiola admitted.

To further rub salt in the wounds following the missed opportunity from City from 12-yards, Dean Henderson revealed the uncertainty in his mind when it came to Haaland and any potential penalty-kick taken by the Norwegian.

“To be fair, Haaland might have stepped up, I wasn’t sure which way he’d go. He gave it to [Omar] Marmoush, I knew which way he was going, I knew I’d save it,” Henderson revealed to television broadcasters.

There will be no time for either Haaland or Marmoush to reflect on the antics of Saturday afternoon however, as both forwards will need to be at their goalscoring best for the final two matches of the season.

Manchester City face a home clash with Bournemouth in the Premier League on Tuesday night, before returning to London to close out the ongoing top-flight season with an away trip to Fulham at Craven Cottage.

Pep Guardiola and his players know what is at stake and what is required in their last two games too, with a minimum of four points required to ensure a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League via a top-five finish.