New rules on giving penalties against Manchester United!

What is Jose Mourinho on about? There is no new rule stopping refs from giving penalties against Manchester United. No. it's a very old rule that stops teams being given penalties when they are playing against Man U!

Mind it takes a very brave referee to give a penalty when the entire population of Torquay is screaming at him not to give it. He knows if he gives it he will never be able to holiday on the English Riviera ever again.

Everyone, except the most biased of fans, knows that there is a bias towards the bigger teams among match officials, particularly when they are playing at home. It's just that United get the favour of refs even more than the rest, to the point that even Juventus would cry foul!

A lot of that is down to the intimidation that referees get from the players questioning every decision made and generally making it difficult for a ref to give any decision to the opposition. It takes a very strong man to ignore eleven players screaming at you after every decision given against them.

Sometimes a referee must just think to himself 'is it worth the hassle'. Though I feel they only have themselves to blame for it, all a ref has to do is book players for protesting and they would soon stop.

Brian Clough never allowed his teams to question referees, even substituting a player for disputing a decision. More recently, George Burley's Ipswich never argued with officials, except in one instance when Ruud van Nistelrooy was guilty of one of the most blatant dives in history and the referee gave a penalty.

Considering how bad the decision was and that it pretty much condemned Ipswich to relegation from the Premiership, I think they can be excused. I have to admit that, watching it at home on the tv, I was questioning the ref's integrity myself!

As for Mourinho's moan about Chelsea not getting a penalty, well I think that is more to do with deflecting attention away from a poor Chelsea performance more than a genuine belief they were hard done by.

Article written by Tris Burke