Roberto Di Matteo comments on the terrible officiating against Manchester United

Today's "loss" was a tough one to take, as Chelsea and Manchester United were level at 2-2 before Mark Clattenburg and company decided to go on holiday. It was pretty obvious to everyone watching that the officials absolutely influenced the game with some bad decisions, and that's always hard to swallow.

Roberto Di Matteo was naturally asked about the terrible work done by the referee and his linesmen, and he stayed relatively level headed about the game. Here are the manager's thoughts on the two absolutely butchered calls (via the official website):

"It's quite obvious in the eyes of everybody that the second yellow for Fernando wasn't one, it was a foul for us, he should have booked Evans and the decisive goal was offside. It's a shame the game has to be decided in that manner by the officials."

On Alex Ferguson's comment that Fernando Torres' second yellow card was "his own fault":

"Whatever [Ferguson] says, it was a foul in our favor and Fernando put the ball between Evans's legs, was through and was kicked on the shin and went down. It's a foul and a booking for the other player, not for our player."

On the overall performance of the officiating:

"We're massively disappointed that these key decisions were wrong it always seems to be in favor of the opposition and it's a massive disadvantage for us. At 2-2 we looked like the team that were probably going to win the game so it's a shame. It was a good game of football with two good teams and the officials ruined it."

"They are under a lot of pressure and they have to be able to deal with it. Key decisions have to be right for any team and you don't want the referees to be a big influence. Let the teams play a good game of football against each other. That's what everyone wants."

This type of stuff makes it so easy to like Di Matteo. He's not playing the victim role excessively here, he's simply pointing out several clearly wrong decisions. I am growing a bit concerned about the number of decisions that seem to be going the wrong way lately, but they really haven't cost us too many points overall.

In the end, we just have to accept the result and move on. Luckily, I'd imagine Di Matteo will have the squad ready to play against Swansea at a high level next weekend. If we play anything like we did for the majority of the game today, we should be just fine.