A piece on the whole Rooney/Chelsea combined refereeing disasters on The Guardian blog by David Lacey, which argues that Sir Alex can't have his cake and eat it, ends with this:
Ferguson, now facing a charge of improper conduct, did have a point on Tuesday when he called the penalty from which Frank Lampard scored Chelsea's winner "soft". Atkinson decided that Chris Smalling had tripped Yuri Zhirkov; playbacks were not needed to support the view that it was more about the Russian showing personal initiative in the face of the enemy.
A bit like the penalty Manchester United were given against Arsenal in October 2004, when Sol Campbell was ruled to have upended Rooney. It was the eighth penalty the referee had awarded United in eight visits to Old Trafford. Name of Riley. Nothing sinister, just a stat, and as Tuesday night demonstrated, these things usually even themselves out.
Which made me cough my coffee all over the place. Apparently the penalty decision from Tuesday against Chelsea is evened out by a penalty from 6 and a half years ago against Arsenal. What?! Forget the fact that three visits to Stamford Bridge in a row we've been robbed by poor refereeing. No, that doesn't need evening out does it...
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