File photo of Gregorio Manzano.

Former Atletico Madrid boss Gregorio Manzano has hit out at the referee after his Shanghai Greenland Shenhua side lost 2-1 away to bitter rivals Beijing Guoan in a weekend match at the Workers' Stadium.

The visitors appeared to have opened the scoring in the 27th minute of the match on Saturday, but the referee chalked the goal off on the advice of his linesman despite initially awarding it and running towards the centre circle.

Things got worse for Shenhua when former Wolfsburg midfielder Zhang Xizhe scored a second-half brace for Guoan in front of more than 43,000 fans. Demba Ba scored in his fifth straight game to grab a late goal for the visitors, but it was not enough to prevent Shenhua losing the fixture for the eighth year running.

Manzano, who joined Shenhua from Guoan in December, told LeTV there was nothing wrong with the goal.

"Why did the referee blow to give the goal at first?" asked the clearly perturbed Spaniard.

"Who can answer me? Because this goal was a crucial point in the game - I really want an answer as the result could have turned out very differently."

Beijing won the fiercely-contested clash between China's two biggest cities despite having yet to find a permanent replacement for ex-Internazionale manager Alberto Zaccheroni who was sacked last month following a poor start to the season.

In the battle between two of the Chinese Super League's biggest spenders, Luiz Felipe Scolari's Guangzhou Evergrande defeated Jiangsu Suning 2-0 at home on Friday with goals from Brazilians Ricardo Goulart in the 24th minute, and Alan just four minutes later.

The victory put Evergrande six points clear ahead of second-placed Hebei China Fortune who succumbed Saturday to a surprise 1-0 defeat away to Tim Cahill's Hangzhou Greentown, who are second bottom in the 16-team league.

Sven-Goran Eriksson's Shanghai SIPG are 4th in the table and without a victory in five games, after Tianjin midfielder Hui Jiakang's equalizer ten minutes from time cancelled out Ivorian forward Jean Kouassi's 39th minute opener in a match which finished 1-1 in front of 24,737 at Shanghai Stadium on Saturday.

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