The bad behaviour and cheating is worse under Maureen. The Chavs have always had a reputation for cheating but Maureen seems to include it in his strategy...
i'm not bothered, i would love it if any of our player did cheat against you on monday, for the last 10 years you've had it your own way and when someone else does it i.e. Ourselves or Barcelona, you go ape sh(i)t.
MANCHESTER UNITED defender Jaap Stam has caused a further stir in his autobiography by claiming that Sir Alex Ferguson encouraged his side to dive in an attempt to earn penalties when playing in Europe. The Dutchman says that the English players in the squad found it hard to adopt the policy of going to ground easily, but that Ferguson believed that it was fair game on the continent. "It's got to the stage where he has even told us: 'Don't try and stay on your feet if you're in the box and get a slight kick," Stam revealed in his autobiography being serialised in the Mirror.
This could relate to SAF more than any other manager in history to be fair. Although Mourinho sometimes adopts similar tactics, SAF wrote the book on it. So very hypocritical of Uniteds fans to throw that accusation about, after 1 game....when your manager did it for 26 years! lol
No one's suggesting there was a conspiracy (except the Chelsea fans who seem determined to read as much nonsense as they can into anything they disagree with). But it would be naive in the extreme to suggest that Clattenburg's refereeing decisions, and Di Matteo and Buck's public statements saying they blamed him for Chelsea's loss, had nothing to do with the decision to release a public statement accusing Clattenburg around two hours after the match had finished. Five minutes with any semi competent lawyer would have shown them that was a ridiculously bad idea, so obviously there were not cool and rational heads in the Chelsea boardroom at the time. Completely agree with you there. Tho' it seems somewhat hypocritical on the part of Chelsea fans to be completely happy when the ref gets the decision wrong in their favour, like against Hull, and then be outraged for almost a year when the ref gets one wrong and it goes against them. Torres knows the rewards and he knows the risks, can't blame the ref if he actually was touched during one of his dives. Any more than rational Utd fans would complain if Ashley Young was booked for diving after getting the merest brush from the defender.
Since when has hypocrisy been limited to one set of fans?? We are all as bad as each other!! Also, how often does a player actually get sent off for diving? Almost never. Whilst it is a yellow card offense, refs should be 100% sure when sending off (as opposed to an initial yellow) as a sending off can change a game so dramatically. Clatenburg couldn't have been 100% sure which makes his decision even more bizarre (albeit Torres could have gone earlier in the game).
He has been doing throughout his career as the posts in this thread indicate. First match into the season, he is up to his old tricks again...
Sorry, should have made it clear I wasn't referring to Chelsea fans collectively. Was talking more about the likes of DL, LF and CPofL who still bang on about how unjust it was and how it proves refs favour Utd and blah blah blah. Don't agree with you there mate - refs send off players plenty of times when they aren't 100% sure. You can't just differentiate for diving, as then you just encourage players to dive when they are on a yellow, whilst discouraging players who are on a yellow from tackling. Refs should book players for diving if they believe they have gone to ground in an unnecessarily theatrical manner. And regardless of the tiny amount of contact between Evans' toe and Torres' shin, you can't deny Torres did just that. Besides which, Clattenburg was 100% sure - he said so himself in an interview after the game that he didn't see any contact, and was certain that no contact occurred which justified Torres diving like he did.
That may well be the case but generally refs are more lenient to players already on a booking, and rightly so. We want games starting and ending 11 v 11 if at all possible especially big games like the Uniteds v Chelseas etc. Cant remember any other high profile incident of a player being sent off for diving which is why the decision seemed so strange - especially when there was contact (albeit minimal)
Refs may be a bit more lenient, but they often give players second yellows for fouls which are as marginal a decision as Torres' dive. Which is ultimately the way it should be - if the game is going to be fair then the player being tackled should be risking exactly the same punishment as the player tackling. You can't have the defender thinking "better hold back, I'm on a yellow" and the attacker thinking "as long as I make this look convincing the ref won't be 100% sure I've dived and I might get the other guy sent off".
Funnily enough the victims have just had their latest support group session. http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/225512-Fickle-fickle-fickle
