- Man City won the Premier League in 2012
- The title was sealed with a victory over QPR
- Mike Dean was left confused by a stoppage time incident
Mike Dean refereed Manchester City’s Premier League title winning match against QPR and still cannot understand something the visitors did at the end of the game.
Manchester City won the Premier League for the time in 2012 after a chaotic clash with QPR at the Etihad Stadium.
The hosts were a goal down, but Edin Dzeko bagged a headed equaliser almost 92 minutes into the match.
Then just before the referee blew his final whistle, Sergio Aguero put Man City 3-2 ahead, which handed his team a famous victory.
Mike Dean details Man City’s victory over QPR
Mike Dean was placed in charge of Man City’s title winning fixture and he is still confused by a decision QPR made after the scoreline was levelled.
The away team immediately kicked the ball back to the Citizens, which eventually led to Aguero baffing the match winner.
"We all wanted that game!" 🔥
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Mike Dean on refereeing the iconic 2012 title decider… 👀 pic.twitter.com/YkItCHv26m
“It was one of those games where I think as all the rest that week when the appointments came out on the Monday we all wanted that game, Dean told The Overlap.
“Just the way the game transpired, just like the emotions, we all thought that City were going to win, I think everybody did, didn’t they? And it just went completely the wrong way.
“And what was strange about it, as we alluded to what’s going on near the end of the game, but, once QPR found out they were safe and I spoke to Clint Hill about this before, I think Jamie Mackie’s on the pitch and he’s going like that, like celebrating while the game’s still going on, because they know they’re safe,” he continued.
“You make it 2-2 and they just kick it back and give it to you. I said, ‘what’s going on here, why they giving the ball back straight away’? We actually said on the earpiece, ‘why are they giving the ball back straight away here’?
“But it was just a strange one to kick off and give the ball straight back to them, I think Neil Swarbrick was my fourth official he just went ‘keep switched on because something’s going to happen here’. You just knew something was going to happen, you could just tell.”
Dean added: “I still can’t get my head round why they kicked the ball straight back, I just couldn’t get that, I don’t know.”
Man City have plenty more Premier League successes now
Dean’s description of what happened that day points towards claims by various figures that QPR threw the game to hand Man City the title.
However, since then the Sky Blues have won the Premier League on seven occasions, proving themselves to a worthy group of winners.
The likes of Dean and Wayne Rooney can speculate all they want, but Man City have won enough titles to show they deserve each and every one of their accomplishments.
