I know it`s not something we should crow about when ‘respect` is the buzz word for the season when it comes to behaviour but our continued good disciplinary record continues to stand us in good stead especially when you witness the scenes we saw on Saturday from the Manchester United players.
With Paul Scholes having been sent off for deliberate handball and Wayne Rooney for being a total ‘pain-in-the-arse` you`d have thought that Sir Alex Ferguson would show a little more grace in his post match interview.
Instead he did his credentials no favours by insisting that Scholes hands couldn`t avoid the ball, despite the midfielder raising them towards the heavens and that although Rooney had thrown the ball with all his force it hadn`t actually hit the referee, a bit like firing a gun then and claiming your bullet never actually hit anyone.
Thankfully, our lads were a little more reserved in their words with Roy Hodgson leading the way in his usual gentlemanly manner commenting,
“Alex has had difficult game after difficult game.”
“They`ve had a very painful defeat against their greatest rivals and then came to us, went a goal down and had one of their best players sent off.”
“On the field, of course people are going to get frustrated and say things they perhaps shouldn`t”
“You`ve got to have sympathy for them. But the referee took the decisions he thought he should take.”
And, in our opinion he was a little lenient. Ronaldo could easily have been given more punishment after his shenanigans and Rooney has proven to be more than a little lucky after his petulant lashing out at the corner flag as his temper raged.
Mark Schwarzer, our man-of-the-match, also mentioned the frustrations United must have felt in his post match interview, explaining,
“Everyone gets frustrated when things are not going your way.”
“Refs make decisions and you have got to live by them. I`m sure they were frustrated and sometime people take their frustration out a little bit too much.”
All we`ll say is that we`d probably still be laughing now if the corner flag Rooney decided to box sprung back and whacked him in the eye!
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