Manchester City manager Manuel Pellegrini launched an extraordinary attack last night on the Swedish referee whose decision to award Barcelona a second half penalty left his players facing a huge task to overcome a 2-0 deficit and progress to the Champions League quarter finals.

It seems inevitable that the Chilean will incur punishment from Uefa after accusing Jonas Eriksson of lacking “impartiality” and awarding the penalty, which saw Martin Demichelis dismissed, to compensate for his controversial failure to give Barcelona two penalties in the 2012 quarter-final against AC Milan at San Siro.

“He favoured Barcelona from the beginning to the end,” said Pellegrini, who was visibly still fuming after his side’s defeat. “I think it was not a good idea to put a referee from Sweden in charge and a referee who made a mistake against Barcelona in the group stages. Football is more important in Europe than Sweden. This referee [officiated in] the Barcelona-Milan game in the group and he made an important error against Barcelona. Today he remedied it.”