Ferdinand blasts 'SILLY' Cancelo for tackle on Dembele that led to PSG penalty

Rio Ferdinand blasted a 'silly' Joao Cancelo for giving away a decisive penalty in Barcelona's defeat to PSG.

The Manchester City loanee lunged in on former Barcelona winger Ousmane Dembele on the hour mark, taking out the Frenchman to give PSG the chance to take the lead in the tie.

Kylian Mbappe stepped up to take the penalty and fired it into the side netting to put his side ahead in the tie for the first time since the midway point of the first leg.

Though he protested, replays showed Cancelo bringing Dembele to the ground with a rash tackle in the penalty area despite the forward seemingly heading away from goal and towards the corner flag.

Ferdinand, speaking on TNT Sports, slammed the defender for the challenge, giving him somewhat of a tutorial on what he should have done to deal with the attack.

'Silly,' the former Manchester United defender began. 'Going away from goal, the winger there, there's no need to jump in.

'That's just a rush of blood, that's just so naive and it's like an inexperienced young player's tackle who's in a panic stations mode. He had the situation so under control, there's no need. You've got to know where you are on the pitch.

'I always think about defenders, stand your feet for as long as you can, especially in your own 18 yard box, and he gets rightly punished I think.'

Peter Crouch, also working for TNT, echoed his fellow pundit's call in that there was no need for the tackle to be made.

After Raphinha had scored early in the game to give Barca a 2-0 lead, Ronald Araujo was sent off for a last-man tackle on Bradley Barcola just 29 minutes in in an incident that turned the game on its head.

Home manager Xavi was also sent off, and Dembele and Vitinha netted to square things up before the