Former Manchester City striker Niall Quinn has criticised Claudio Bravo for making a "horrific" error in the Premier League club's Champions League clash with Barcelona on Wednesday night.
Man City were losing 1-0 early in the second period of the Group C match when Bravo rushed out his area and presented the ball straight to Luis Suarez. In a bid to rectify the situation, the Chilean then stuck his hands up and picked up a straight red card for handling outside of the penalty box.
Pep Guardiola's side went on to lose 4-0 at Camp Nou and Quinn has claimed that on-loan goalkeeper Joe Hart, who was snubbed by Guardiola in the summer, would not have made a mistake of that magnitude.
"It was pretty horrific what he did. He was in total control of the situation. He was well outside the box and you thought he was going to take it down, but he tried to play it first time," Quinn told Sky Sports News.
"Suarez literally came to a stop waiting for it to be dealt with and couldn't believe his luck that it was kicked straight to him, so he controlled it and tried to play it with a bit of height around the goalkeeper into the goal. Bravo had to put his hands up and save it from going in. Having got back into the game and starting to look the better team, it was the death knell really to go down to 10 men.
"Although Barcelona were not at their best you could see they were going to have more space and time and the game was over as a contest. My first thought was 'would Joe Hart have done that?' Not in a million years."
Lionel Messi scored a hat-trick for Barcelona during the Group C match, before Neymar, who missed from the penalty spot, rounded off the scoring in the 89th minute with a close-range finish.
Matt Law
