Neil Warnock was left fuming over “the worst match officials in the world” after watching Cardiff City succumb to defeat against Chelsea on Sunday.
The Bluebirds took the lead immediately after the restart thanks to a Víctor Camarasa volley, but were pegged back in the 84th minute by a Cesar Azpilicueta goal that was allowed to stand despite two Chelsea players – Azpilicueta included – loitering in offside positions.
Warnock was then sent into a state of cataclysmic apoplexy when a towering Ruben Loftus-Cheek header saw the away side pilfer all three points in stoppage time.
After the final whistle, the 70-year-old angrily confronted the officials (and just about everybody else) on the pitch, even initially refusing to conduct his post-match interview with Sky Sports because he was “too angry” to speak.
He did eventually emerge, and the resulting tirade was most definitely worth the brief wait…
😡 “It is the best league in the world with the worst officials”
Neil Warnock left fuming after Cardiff’s 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea.
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— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) 31 March 2019
With rage barely concealed, the man with the most perplexing hairline in the top flight grumbled thus:
It’s almost like not a matter of who you play, but who you get in the middle and who has a flag.
It’s alright making genuine mistakes but, at this level, it shouldn’t happen. Not when you put so much into a game.
It’s a sickener. It’s soul destroying. My players feel like they have been kicked in the teeth. I don’t deserve officials like that today. There is no excuse for that, it’s criminal.
We’ve got the best league in the world and probably the worst officials.
Of course, the Premier League officials are all actually rather good, but we’re not about to let reason spoil a good, sour-faced Warnock meltdown, even if we have heard it all a thousand times before.
Funny how nobody has even the first shred of sympathy for a manager who has been so callously and blatantly wronged so, so many times.