When I was a manager, my wife used to watch us all on the touchline and say we were like little boys, shouting and waving our arms around. She thought it was a bit pathetic but also knew there was no point banging on about it. I was not going to change.
The emotion and stress of managing makes you behave like that. Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola like to come across as cool customers but deep down they are just like the rest of us.
They are under immense pressure and when they need a release it tends to be the referee or fourth official who gets it. It’s like road rage. People just explode and behave like they would not normally do.
Klopp went too far on Sunday but he knows that and has said so. He will take his punishment and it may serve as an example to others that this behaviour won’t be tolerated and I guess that’s a good thing. It sends a message. But I am OK with Klopp’s actions. He didn’t hit anyone did he?
Klopp shouldn’t have been allowed to come back on to the field and celebrate at full time. To have been denied that would have hurt him more than the fine.
When I was on the touchline, I was fined for chasing the referee down the tunnel when my Sheffield United team played at Leeds United. The FA panel asked me one question. ‘Did you swear at him, Mr Bassett?’ I said I had and that was it. Hearing over. I was fined £1,000. Fair enough.
These days I see coaching staff who take it in turns to go and chatter into the fourth official’s ear. It’s a drip-drip effect and is clearly rehearsed and choreographed. In my day it was spontaneous and we all did it. Fergie could be bad. Neil Warnock was probably the worst of all. I even heard dear old Jim Smith tell a referee to get his eyes tested when he lost at Wimbledon.
Later in my career I was managing Leicester at Bolton and Sam Allardyce and I agreed to be wired up to heart monitors. The results were shocking but at the same time they weren’t. Our blood pressure was through the roof but we had a player sent off and they had two, so what did they expect? Sam gave the ref some that day, by the way!
Ultimately it’s up to the FA and the referees and whether they really want to get a grip on it. If they do, they need to start getting the red card out more often for managers.
But I wouldn’t advocate that. Life is emotional. Football is emotional. We are not at the cinema are we?
