Take the egg-chasing for example. If a team plays shit in rugby, the managers say the team played shit. And the fans love it. As Roy Walker so famously said - say what you see.
Unfortunately that's not a catchphrase that's part of football.
Instead fans have to put up with constant one-eyed bullshit from managers desperate to cover their own backs. Players do it too. It's enough to make a politician proud.
Look at Alex Ferguson. Jamie Carragher launches into a high tackle that doesn't take the ball and leaves Nani needing five stitches in his leg. Ferguson labels the tackle "disgraceful".
Jonny Evans launches into a high tackle that doesn't take the ball and leaves Stuart Holden needing 26 stitches in his leg. The Bolton midfielder is ruled out for up to six months and will miss Wanderers' FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. Ferguson says that Evans is "not that type of player". Spot the difference.
Carragher stayed on the pitch after his tackle while Evans was red-carded. On that point United had a valid moan - refs giving one decision one week and another the next drives everyone mad.
But Ferguson wasn't trying to clean up the game or launching some kind of moral crusade. If he was, why so quiet when Wayne Rooney slammed his elbow into James McCarthy's face?
Club bias gone mad is infuriating. Nani said after the Carragher tackle: "I want referees to pay more attention when players make tackles like that."
Yet when a Man United player made a tackle like that, his team-mate Rio Ferdinand said on Twitter: "It was an honest solid tackle between him and Evans and Evans gets a red card. I don't agree at all."
Steve Bruce was at it on Sunday. It wasn't a penalty - we know that. Liverpool's Jay Spearing was clearly fouled outside the box.
But when the Sunderland manager tried to give it the puppy-dog eyes and played the sympathy card in front of the cameras, was anyone buying it?
After all, the Mackems were awful, and didn't manage a shot on goal until the 86th minute. But that was the ref's fault, right?
Wind the clock back a couple of weeks and Sunderland clung on to a point at Arsenal after a perfectly good Andrey Arshavin goal was ruled out for offside. The Gunners were also denied a clear penalty.
Did Bruce tear into the officials? Did he reveal he had been to see the ref to tell him he got it wrong? Of course not. Because he'd benefitted from it and that's all that matters. So he just shrugged and said Sunderland had "got away with one". Welcome to the world of football logic.
Liverpool may well point Bruce to last season's visit to the Stadium of Light when Darren Bent's beachball-assisted winner should have been ruled out.
It wasn't, Sunderland won and Bruce said: "If anybody knew that rule - that it is supposed to be a drop ball - then you are a saddo."
That's not sad. What's sad is that managers think we buy this bullshit.
Daily Sport
23 Mar 2011
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