Avram Grant should realise that it's all about ...

... timing.  It's been an odd few weeks for the best Israeli manager in English football.  Widely derided and assumed to be on his way out, Chelsea fans turned on him on 23 March.  That was when Chelsea seemed to be slipping out of the title race as Arsenal were beating them 1-0 at Stamford Bridge with 20 minutes left.  The chants of 'you don't know what you're doing' were quickly stifled as two late Drogba goals knocked Arsenal back to a position they never quite recovered from.  That was the day that Grant seemingly threw off the shackles and played football and a team of his choosing.

There is little doubt that since the Arsenal match Grant has grown more bullish and confident, and we are now reaching the point where sacking Grant would make about as much sense as, say, Manchester City sacking Sven Goran Eriksson.  Possible - but probably counter productive.

Also in the last few weeks Grant has started to use the press as a weapon in the mind games war.  Of course his chief target has been Manchester United and after questioning the integrity of Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce in whether their teams would try to win, he has now turned on the referees that he believes favour the northern club.

Everyone saw the three incidents at the JJB stadium, and we all know that all three could have gone the other way.  The type of penalty that we've all seen given and another that we've all seen waved away, plus a challenge that would have been a yellow, but for the earlier one.  But to be honest if all those incidents had been ruled the other way it doesn't seem likely that it would have mattered.  Wigan played well but didn't stretch the United keeper and Chris Kirkland had to make a number of impressive saves to keep the score down - United always seemed likely to do enough to win. 

With Chelsea unable to see Bolton off the only possible reason to trot out these comments on the injustice of it all is to impress the Champions' League referee for next week.  And that is where the timing is questionable.  With the aftermath of the Rangers defeat there is barely room to consider this gripe, and with the FA Cup final next to grab the hearts and minds this is not likely to stay topical long. 

Better to have brought this up on the morning of the game, no time for a rebuttal and the maximum impact on the referee.  Avram Grant really needs to improve his ... timing.