Not Always Right - But Never Wrong

As a football manager, you reckon to know a bit about the game. You tend to notice, for instance, when an opposing striker is clearly offside – even if your view isn’t as good as that of the linesman (sorry – referee’s assistant) who is supposed to put his flag up on these occasions.

So when, unaccountably, he doesn’t and you’ve taken the trouble to check out the replay of the incident on a convenient television monitor, you can’t help but get cross at the injustice of it all. And your reward is to be banished to the stand for daring to question the linesman’s incompetent decision which is, of course, inviolable and for which, remarkably, he is paid.

On this occasion, the aggrieved manager was Fulham’s Chris Coleman. The offside player was Ruud Van Nistelrooy (is he ever really offside?). His shot was parried by Niemi, only for Saha to run in the rebound.

As for the referee and linesman, their parts could have been played by actors.