Cool it!

One interesting sub-plot of the weekend's football was that of several managers losing their cool.

Arsene Wenger was petulant and obtuse in his post-match interview with BBC reporter Jacqui Oakly, deliberately misunderstanding the Gricean implicature in several of her questions. The interview caused Gary Lineker and several others to label him 'patronizing'. However, I doubt very much Lineker et al would have called him that had his interviewer been a man!!

So shut up Lineker, you male chauvanist pig. 

 Wenger needs to be more careful though. Managers these days represent the club brand. Since Arsenal aren't doing well on the pitch he needs to try extra hard to be charming and engaging off it.

Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock strongly criticized referee Craig Pawson for his performance in the match against Chelsea on Saturday. He said that the referee was influenced by Chelsea players surrounding him asking for a red card for Palace's Damien Delaney. Chelsea's habit of doing that is very nasty (more about Chelsea and their unpleasantness in another post) and I have some sympathy for Warnock's position here. Moreover, it is well-known that big clubs get more decisions in their favour from referees than small ones. It's easier for a referee to give a decision against little old Crystal Palace than it is against Chelsea because the backlash in the media if they get it wrong will be much, much less. 

Warnock might well be charged by the F.A, but I think managers at smaller clubs feel that they have to kick up a fuss sometimes in order to get decisions in their favour more often.

Gary Monk of Swansea could be in big trouble for some of his strong comments at the weekend, but some of his comments  were also entirely fair.

He called Victor Moses a 'cheat'. For me this is justified since he clearly dived, and diving is a form of cheating. Diving players ought to be called out more often. One of these days a dive will decisively decide the outcome of a really big match, and all hell will break loose.

Monk also said that referee Michael Oliver had 'cheated'  his team. Monk is a good young manager but has made a mistake here, questioning the integrity of the referee undermines the enture league and brings the game into disrepute. Monk deserves to be punished for this.

One allegation is that Oliver tried to 'even things up' after giving a dodgy penalty in Swansea's favour earlier in the match. If that has happened then Oliver has made a huge (though understandable and in some ways natural) mistake. Referees must never try to 'even things up' but must always try to call it as they see it, regardless of the circumstances.

One solution to these problems experienced by Warnock and Monk is that referees could be substituted after making a big mistake. The incoming referee would be able to perform much better than someone burdened by the pressure of knowing have probably made a huge error which could get them dropped or demoted later.

Your thoughts on this would be welcome.