Do Managers ever stop moaning?

Like most people with even a passing interest in football I usually watch Match of the Day.  However, these days I've taken to either muting the bits between the football, or putting the kettle on.  Partly because I don't particularly care what Alan Hansen thinks about the "shocking defending", but mostly because I'm getting sick hearing of hearing the Managers use their post-match soundbites to simply bad-mouth the referees. 

Moaning at the odd refereeing decision isn't exactly new territory for football Managers.  Poor officiating has always been a convenient excuse for bosses when their expensively assembled team of show ponies gets gumped at home by the relegation certainties.

Curiously, the reasons for defeat very rarely include the Manager's poor tactics, dodgy substitutions, lacklustre players or the inability of their £50 Million striker to hit a barn door with a Torres.  All these issues pale into insignificance when the Manager's team were denied a penalty when their shifty South American winger takes a theatrical dive when a defender's leg came within 3-feet of connecting.  Suddenly this one "poor decision" is the only reason his team lost, despite the Manager's obvious brilliance.

And it doesn't matter whether his team is in the running for the Champion's League, mid-table obscurity, or relegation certainty.  The Ref has it for them.  Recently the increasingly myopic Jose Mourinho has teetered ever closer to falling off the edge of sanity altogether.  One week he applauded a penalty gifted to him by the Ref against West Brom where only the two of them in the entire Capital, let alone Stamford Bridge thought a foul had occurred.  A few days later he blames Ref's for falling for players diving, just as his own players take it upon themselves to try to fly every time they get in their opponents penalty box.

Last week, poorly dubbed Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino claimed the Officials punished his team because they were too young and pretty.  Or something like that.

This week, rapidly ageing Old Trafford boss David Moyes griped, "We're playing referees as well as the opposition". We're actually beginning to laugh at them, that's the thing."It's really terrible, it really is. We're having to play them as well as the opposition at the moment."  Just because his new team are proving that without Fergie to scare them that they are mid-table fodder, he chooses to blame the officials who used to play until United scored.

Anytime I hear a Football Manager start a sentence with the words, "I don't usually criticise Refs, but....." I just tune out.  Instead of whining about the refereeing standards why not spend the week between games working on a few additional things in training.  Such as telling his forwards to stop cheating every time they get within 18 yards of goal, practice sticking a ball into a net and resisting the urge to jump into every challenge with two feet.

Until you've been reffed by a Southern League
Ref we suggest you shut the f*ck up!