Shut up, Steve Bruce

I was amazed and pleased that Adrian Chiles decided to call out Steve Bruce on MOTD 2 over his ludicrous assertion that the defeat to Chelsea was somehow aided by the referee missing fouls in the lead up to both goals.  The first took place a full two minutes before the goal (and is debatable – definitely not a clear-cut foul), and Wigan had several opportunities to clear their lines, and the second was so soft as to be laughable.  In fact, Chiles may even have laughed.

He might as well slate the referee for giving a goal-kick instead of a corner in the first minute, because that would have altered the entire game in a very subtle way and maybe Wigan would have won 10-0.

It’s unusual for MOTD to draw attention to these incidents where a manager is demonstrably wrong – that they even went back and replayed the incident in real-time to show just how small a factor the decision was is a bonus.  I just hope that they will continue to do this, and not allow managers to get away with saying whatever they like and bringing down referees who have done nothing wrong.