Rico Lewis 'ignored' being struck by a lighter to help Man City to win
Rico Lewis ‘ignored’ being struck by a lighter thrown from the crowd to focus on helping Manchester City to Premier League opening night victory as Burnley vow to ban the culprit
- Manchester City began their Premier League title defence with 3-0 Burnley win
- 18-year-old defender Rico Lewis was struck by a lighter thrown from the stands
- The first full episode of Mail Sport’s podcast ‘It’s All Kicking Off’ is available now
Manchester City teenager Rico Lewis was forced to try and ignore being struck by a lighter thrown from the crowd at Burnley on Friday in order to help his team complete a 3-0 win.
The 18-year-old defender was hit by the object as he lay on the ground after tussling with Burnley’s Connor Roberts by the corner flag in the first-half.
It was an unsavoury and potentially dangerous moment, but Lewis said he had to try and put it to one side in order to concentrate on the action.
‘It was just something I had to deal with at the time. When you’re in the game you can’t really focus on it,’ said Lewis.
‘It’s just an incident that’s unfortunate it’s happened to me but it happens to a lot of players, which is not a good thing.
Manchester City star Rico Lewis was struck by a lighter at Burnley on Friday night
The 18-year-old defender was also able to continue playing at Turf Moor as City won 3-0
‘But there’s nothing really much you can do about it. You’ve just got to ignore and then it’ll get sorted at the end of the game.’
Lewis cried out after being struck but did not need medical attention.
Burnley said in a statement: ‘This is unacceptable. The person responsible has been identified and removed from the ground. Any individual found guilty of throwing missiles within the stadium will receive a banning order.’
Though Pep Guardiola has ruled out a repeat of last season’s Treble, his youngest player is bullish about trying to win everything again.
‘Firstly, we’re very happy because we’ve come away with what we needed, which is three points,’ he said.
‘Coming here to a side like Burnley, where they’ve just been promoted, they’re going to have fire in their bellies to get off the ground running, so we’re very happy.
‘The objective is to win the Treble again, to win the Quadruple. Winning it once isn’t good enough, so we have to try and win it again.’
Lewis was replaced by new £78million City signing Josko Gvardiol at Turf Moor
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