Yet Mourinho's complaints over the performance of the officials could not mask the deficiencies in his own players' display.
"First it looks like Arnautovic actually catches [Danny Drinkwater's] heel just outside the box, but given the performance of the officials today it was always likely it was going to be given as a penalty," the Stoke manager said.
The former Porto boss, who had not lost a league match as manager for 17 months prior to Sunday, began this week by venting his frustration at the performance of the officials in Manchester, revealing he had made a complaint to referees' chief Mike Riley.
But Di Matteo refused to blame the controversy that has engulfed Stamford Bridge since that game, and praised the performance of the officials in their latest fixture.
"It's not up to me to judge the performances of the officials, I can only say it was a very hard task that the referee trio had on the field of play.
"They tried everything, with a couple of 'festivals' we had during the season … [a reference to his dissatisfaction with the performances of the officials in the recent defeats to Aston Villa and Sunderland] Without those 'festivals' it would have been a better season too.
Dutch disappointment at their third World Cup final defeat crystallised tonight in an embittered condemnation of the performance of the English official, Howard Webb.
On a more positive note, I enjoyed the performance of the Welsh official Nigel Owens in the France-Italy game – and I don't often feel good about a refereeing display as I sit down to reflect on a contest.
The Dutchman won the European Cup with PSV Eindhoven in 1988 but his last Champions League game was Chelsea's infamous 2009 semi-final against Barcelona, an occasion overshadowed by the performance of the Norwegian official, Tom Henning Ovrebo, who turned down a succession of penalty appeals for the hosts before Andrés Iniesta secured Barça's progress with a last-minute equaliser.
We realized this especially when we read abou the performance of the city officials on the occasion of the Unakee Clipper's N. Y. hop last week.
