Fury inside Atletico Madrid tunnel as Grealish and Laporte targeted

Furious Atletico Madrid players had to be held back as they tried to confront Manchester City stars in the tunnel following Wednesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg tie.

City ground out a goalless draw in the Spanish capital to advance to the last four and a showdown with Atleti's city rivals Real Madrid, but the closing stages of the match descended into chaos which later spilt over into the tunnel.

City sub, Jack Grealish could be seen in confrontation with the former City defender Stefan Savic on the pitch before the end of the match, with Savic also thrusting his head towards Raheem Sterling following an incident involving Phil Foden.

A video from French TV station RMC Sport shows Savic having to be held back by his teammates as he looked to confront Grealish, who remains restrained and heads back to the changing room.

Shortly afterwards City's Aymeric Laporte seemed to be targeted by Croatian defender Sime Vrsaljko, who was surrounded by teammates as he shouted at the Spanish international.

"What Jack’s said there, what we can’t say here live on air, gets said about nine times out of 10 by a player on the pitch at some point most games," said Ferdinand over footage of Grealish mouthing a swear word.

"There’s verbals that go on and you have a little bit of back and forth with people. It shouldn’t result in that. Savic will look back on that and think it’s not his finest moment."

Hargreaves added: "Savic was delighted with the yellow card he thought ‘I’ll take that!’ The emotional control of Man City was spectacular during that chaos."

Ferdinand added: "We need to commend Man City for the way they dealt with the situation. It was difficult. Forget the crowd, those moments when you’re being antagonised, poking you, but they managed to come away without anyone being involved too much.

"We heard about after the game, but the game had finished. We don’t quite know what happened. Foden and Sterling. Foden is a young boy. It’s a good experience for them in some way. To be able to control your emotion."

City defender John Stones, who could be seen at the start of the tunnel video, preferred to focus on the way his side handled the delicate occasion.

"We know they sometimes try and make things happen like that," he said.

"I thought we dealt with it really well. It’s not nice to talk about that, I don’t want to dwell on it too much because over two legs I think we played incredible against such an experienced team in what they do, in such a low block.

"I’m so proud of the lads today on how we kept control and our tempers. It’s so easy to get drawn in, so happy to be through, great night."