Tom Pope scored a goal in Port Vale’s 4-1 loss to Manchester City in FA Cup third round and he insists he is ‘pleased to shut a few people’.
However, Manchester City had a comfortable evening they eased passed their opponent to score four goals.
The key talking point was Pope’s goal after his viral criticism for John Stones before the showdown between the Manchester side and Port Vale.
https://twitter.com/Tom_Pope9/status/1136896482446061569
Pope’s tweet quoted: “Just watched the highlights of the England game! I know I’m a league 2 player, I know he plays for England, I know he’s on £150k a week, I know he’s a million times better player than me but I’d love to play against John Stones every week! I’d get 40 a season!”
Evidently, due to this off the field incident, all the eyes were on that duel, however, John Stones largely dealt with him well and had the last laugh as City qualified for the next round in the FA Cup competition, but the Port Vale striker Tom Pope certainly had his moment.
Pope canceled out Oleksandr Zinchenko’s opening goal with a finely taken header and later intercepted a Stones pass to create another chance.
Here's Tom Pope's goal against #ManCity 👏
(via @EmiratesFACup)pic.twitter.com/9TKvwLBtSd
— Yahoo Soccer (@FCYahoo) January 4, 2020
Pope said, “It was only banter and people have dug it up because we’ve drawn Man City. All of a sudden it’s everywhere and people have been on my case about it.
“He’s a world-class center-half. I was just saying he wasn’t very physical and that’s it. If people think I’m wrong, well, I don’t care.
“I spoke to (Benjamin) Mendy and he said all their players had battered him for weeks about it and they got him that wound up about it, and then obviously I’ve scored and he’s probably devastated.
“But I was just hoping I got a half chance to try to put one away. The last thing you want to do is get beaten 7-0 after everything that’s gone on Twitter, not score and everyone laughs.
“It was nice to shut a few people up to back up what I said but it’s water off a duck’s back. I wasn’t too bothered about it either way.”
Despite Pope’s 34th minute leveler, Manchester City didn’t look stumbled and scored four, in the end, to prevail for the fourth round.
