Scolari really started something with his little tantrum about referees before the Liverpool game I reckon.

I’d already said before the game that his comments were a bit wide of the mark and that quite apart from the facts not supporting his theory that the refs have some kind of bias, over the course of a season, these things even themselves out.

Fair enough, Riley’s decision against Lampard was pretty costly, because I honestly think we were heading for a point before his sending off changed all that but unfortunately, we just have to accept that Riley cocked-up and take it on the chin now, it’s done.

Did he go into the game with deliberate bias though – maybe because he’d read Lampard’s comments about there being no love lost between him and Alonso? Or was it Scolari’s digs about referee’s he’d been perusing before the game?

Go back a little further though and maybe it had more to do with a certain decision he made – or rather didn’t make – last season? Because not only did Riley completely mess up by not red-carding Ashley Cole in our 4-4 draw with Spurs last March, he then added insult to injury as far as the watching world was concerned by allowing Cole to make a complete dick out of him. So maybe it was the backlash for not booking a Chelsea man Riley had on his mind on Sunday?

That in mind, to hear Ashley Cole now coming out whingeing about what opponents get away with compared to us is just embarrassing really. After a weekend which saw Rory Delap dismissed whilst former Chelsea team-mate Shaun Wright-Phillips escaped what should have been the same punishment for kicking out at Delap (see, it happens) Cole suggests “All the players watched what happened with Shaun Wright-Phillips and no-one gets booked or questioned about it. We do one little tackle and we seem to be getting yellow and red cards. It’s down to the referee, it’s his decision and we have to stand by it.”

Funny though, I wouldn’t exactly describe Bosingwa’s offence as ‘one little tackle’ and I didn’t see any cards issued there. Wonder how Cole and Scolari would explain that let-off in their conspiracy theory?

Filed under: Current Players, Rants