REFEREES can be very much like the Mafia: insult one of them, and you have offended the whole of the family.
David Moyes needn’t worry about waking up one morning to find a horse’s head alongside him in bed.
But the Everton FC manager should be wary of an adverse reaction to the fall-out from last Saturday’s Merseyside derby and the furore surrounding Jack Rodwell.
It doesn’t matter that the Goodison outfit were right to appeal what was a resoundingly wrong decision by Martin Atkinson to dismiss the midfielder.
It doesn’t matter that the referee and the Football Association have since admitted as much by rescinding the red card.
What matters is Everton very publicly and very forthrightly questioned an official. And, as many teams have discovered in the past, that can often count against them in the immediate future.
Just look at Liverpool.
Kenny Dalglish was singularly unimpressed by a clutch of decisions that went against his team in the 1-0 defeat at Stoke City last month.
