If Shaw feels bullied, it may say more about him than Jose Mourinho
The first interview I conducted for a national newspaper was with Jack Simmons, the Lancashire all-rounder.
'Flat Jack', as he was known, was an off-break bowler of great consistency, and something of a cult figure with a penchant for fish and chips that impacted on his athletic physique.
Reporting for pre-season training, the early conditioning work often made him physically ill. The line was that, now in his forties, this was all going to change. It would be a new 'Flat Jack' this season.
If Luke Shaw feels bullied at Manchester United it may say more about him than Jose Mourinho
Being a rookie, I thought I should set the scene around what Simmons used to be like. I dutifully filed the copy. 'Last year...' it began. Within five minutes my sports editor, Neville Holtham, was on the phone.
'Listen, son,' he started. 'I'm not interested in what happened last year. I'm not interested in what happened, last month, last week or f****** yesterday. This is a newspaper. It's about next year, next month, next week or tomorrow. I'm throwing this in the bin, do you hear?' He held the phone close to his hand, so I could listen to my masterpiece being crumpled and aimed into a metallic receptacle. 'Now do it again.'
A few weeks later, I was sent to interview Alan Dickens, a promising midfield player with West Ham. Neville phoned the next day, wanting to know where the copy was. I told him he'd have it the following morning. 'The Israelis won a f****** war in less time than it's taken you to write this,' he said darkly, and the line went dead.
He was right both times, and a hundred others, too. You don't start a feature with last year's bulletin, and no interview with a middling midfielder requires 48 hours to finesse. But you know what Neville Holtham would be called now? A bully.
Shaw's team-mates are aghast at his treatment, after he was hauled off against Brighton
Pretty soon, admonishment, even tough love, in the workplace will be a thing of the past. Jose Mourinho is also a bully, apparently, for his attitude towards Luke Shaw.
Reports say Shaw's team-mates are aghast at his treatment, including a half-time substitution against Brighton on Saturday. Mourinho was later very critical of the attitude of the team, and Shaw specifically. 'Every time they came down his corridor, the cross came in and with it a dangerous situation,' Mourinho explained. 'I was not happy with his performance.'
Is that bullying, or just an uncomfortable truth? Maybe, rather than the victim of a vendetta, Shaw was simply poor against Brighton. Is Mourinho no longer entitled to replace an under-performing player or to explain his decision with an honest, albeit damning, assessment. He started Shaw in an FA Cup quarter-final. He didn't do that to trip him up. There were two paths available: Shaw could play well as his manager hoped, or he could disappoint. Professional competition isn't school sports day. Everybody isn't a winner.
Mourinho has previously been critical of Shaw's fitness levels and his application. He has also said he has the potential to be one of the best full-backs in the world. So might these wildly differing assessments hold the key to his antagonism? Might Mourinho think very highly of Shaw - after all, he tried and failed to buy him at Chelsea - and therefore be upset with what he perceives as a lack of commitment?
Mourinho has previously been critical of Shaw's fitness levels and his application
While it might be thought he could have handled certain players better during his time at Manchester United and elsewhere, bullying is a different matter. It is one thing not to like Mourinho's style, but to claim he is a tyrant is to imply irrationality, favouritism, spite, even sadism.
Reports say Mourinho spent much of the first 45 minutes shouting at Shaw on Saturday. But there's another word for that: coaching. With close to 80,000 in the stadium, a manager needs to raise his voice to put his point across, even to the player nearest him.
So, when does coaching become bullying? What is Mourinho supposed to do? Pen a politely worded invitation to Shaw to do more as Manchester United's full-back? Have a quiet word at half-time? The game could be lost by then.
Maybe he thought Shaw's performance was reflecting poorly on him, his methodology, his instructions as coach. Mourinho sets a lot of store in being the leader of his pack. Much of his anger with Chelsea team doctor Eva Carneiro concerned her decision to challenge him publicly.
All staff are told to keep disputes private, even if they feel Mourinho is unjust or wrong. 'Come and see me in my office and you can tell me to my face,' he tells them. 'But never confront me in front of the players.'
Did he feel Shaw's performance so ordinary it constituted defiance? And, if Mourinho took it personally, does that automatically equate to harassment?
Bullying is one of the buzzwords of the season, including around Peter Beardsley at Newcastle
Bullying is one of the buzzwords of the season. The investigation continues into the behaviour of Newcastle coach Peter Beardsley and, whatever the outcome, it is unlikely he is going to be let near his under-23 squad again.
Understandably so. The accusations of racism against him are extremely troubling and reveal either a vindictive streak, or a crass level of insensitivity.
To tell African players struggling on climbing bars at an activity centre named Go Ape, 'your lot should be good at this', or to overhear a conversation in Arabic and sneeringly call it 'a made-up language', shows a man crudely out of place in football's modern world.
But not every harsh remark is bullying. Conflated with serious evidence against Beardsley are what appear lightweight asides. 'I'm so high up, I feel I could die,' says a player on the bars. 'That would do us all a favour,' Beardsley deadpans. Bullying? Droll exchanges of this nature are hardly uncommon in the workplace.
By removing context, we weaken the argument. There are exchanges in Victoria Wood's Dinnerladies more wicked than what Beardsley said there.
Kieron Dyer did not think ill of Graeme Souness at Newcastle, despite the Scot's harsh attitude
Kieron Dyer's autobiography is illuminating in its depiction of coaching as was. After a late night incident that ended in a visit to a police station, Graeme Souness, Dyer's manager at Newcastle, threatened to beat him up.
That may have been a euphemism, but with Craig Bellamy, Souness meant it. He grabbed the player by the throat during an altercation and tried to drag him to the gym to sort it out 'like men'.
And, no this isn't the most sophisticated management technique - but when handling young males, with strong minds and stronger bodies, softly, softly does not always work.
Certainly, Dyer did not think ill of Souness. 'He was actually really good for me,' he recalled. 'The season I had with him was the best football I played. I owed him a lot. I liked his style.'
And that's what coaching is. A style. Bobby Gould, at Wimbledon, kept two sets of boxing gloves above his desk, as a reminder that if anyone wanted to, he was ready to go, any time. He was handling the notorious remnants of Dave Bassett's Crazy Gang. He had to meet them at their level.
Pep Guardiola didn't need to tape hands to manage at Barcelona, but he did need to cope with high maintenance talent. The careers of Samuel Eto'o and Zlatan Ibrahimovic both ended in hostility, with only one winner. Yet Guardiola is no bully; just laser-focused and demanding.
Rightly or wrongly, that is Mourinho, too. He knew exactly what he wanted from Shaw on Saturday, and he would have believed he made that very clear. If Shaw feels bullied, or his team-mates appalled by what then developed, it possibly says more about them than it does Mourinho.
Rugby Europe's decision to place a Romanian in charge of Spain v Belgium invited trouble
Rugby takes great pride in the relationship between players and referees. Shows of dissent are rare, respect is mutual. There is, however, no room for complacency.
Rugby Europe's decision to place a Romanian official, Vlad Iordachescu, in charge of Spain's match with Belgium was insensitive and invited trouble.
Spain and Romania were in direct competition for a World Cup qualifying place - and Iordachescu's award of six penalties to Belgium meant they defeated Spain 18-10, sending Romania through in the Europe 1 slot.
Predictably, there were accusations of bias and Spain's players confronted Iordachescu at the end of the match. Jaime Nava, the captain, later apologised, but the damage was done.
'Spain didn't lose, rugby lost,' said coach Santiago Santos. He is right. Not to doubt Iordachescu's integrity, but this controversy could have been prevented.
If assistant referee Marius van der Westhuizen could be removed from England's Six Nations match with Ireland at two days' notice, having participated in an instructional training session with England at Pennyhill Park, then Iordachescu and his team could just as easily have been stood down.
Not because the fix was in, but to protect him from that very obvious accusation if Spain lost. The players are not the problem; it is time rugby's administrators afforded referees the respect they deserve.
Belgium defeated Spain 18-10, controversially sending Romania to the 2019 World Cup
A number of records stand to be broken if Mark Hughes leads Southampton to FA Cup victory. He will be the first manager to lift the trophy, having lost a tie that season - his Stoke team being eliminated by Coventry at the third round stage.
More surprising, however, is that he would be the first Welsh-born manager to win a domestic trophy in this country. More prizes have been won here by Chileans and Danes than Welshmen. Considering the success of Scottish coaches that is a genuine mystery.
Mark Hughes would be the first Welsh boss to win an English trophy if Saints win the FA Cup
With promotion increasingly certain, it appears some insecure Premier League clubs may be mobilising against Wolves, too. We can pretty much imagine who they are. The slow-witted, the bereft of ideas, those who fear relegation and wish to drag Wolves down to their level.
The claim is that Wolves' link to Jorge Mendes' company Gestifute and the number of his clients on the staff constitutes third party interference. Yet nothing in the Football Association, Football League or Premier League rule book prevents a club having a share in an agency, and there is no evidence Mendes interferes in team selection.
For Wolves to contravene regulations, therefore, it would need 14 clubs to vote to make agency ownership illegal - and how many want to risk upsetting one of the most influential advisors in the game?
Some clubs continue to complain about Wolves' links to Jorge Mendes' company Gestifute
Much like the protests against Wolves from within the Football League, this seems an overplayed hand. Derby, for instance, are more upset at being considered aligned with Aston Villa and Leeds, than with anything Wolves have done.
'We have no axe to grind with Wolves and appear to have been thrown into this debate for spurious reasons,' a Derby official told me last week. 'We don't support either of those other two clubs.'
Far from being motivated by fair play, the campaign seems more a sign of desperation - as it would be in the Premier League. If your club feels threatened by Wolves, what does it say about their own operation?
Adrien Silva remains unhappy with FIFA over his botched summer move to Leicester City
Adrien Silva has been talking of his delayed move from Sporting Lisbon to Leicester. 'I will never understand the decision of FIFA,' he said. 'We're talking about seconds here.'
Actually, we're not. We're talking months. Leicester had two months to get their transfer business done, and missed the deadline. Yes, by 14 seconds: but that's what a deadline is. It's a line at which a thing goes dead. In this case, the market. It's like a lot of other lines, a goal line for instance, or a touchline. If the ball goes 14 millimetres over, it's dead; if it stops 14 millimetres short, it's not a goal. That's why we have lines.
Leicester had all summer to make the signing and could be seen chasing around with pieces of paper as the minutes ticked away. It was rough on Silva, who had to wait months to play his first game for his new club, but the deal could have been done any time between July 1 and September 1, 2017. That's 63 days; not 14 seconds.
Southampton have sold major players, including Adam Lallana, ever since being promoted
What choice did they have? That is Southampton's claim. What chance does any small Premier League club have when the wealthy elite come calling?
To some extent that is true. Big clubs have always preyed on smaller clubs. Everton couldn't keep Wayne Rooney, Southampton were always going to struggle to hang on to Adam Lallana.
Except they didn't just sell Lallana. That season, they also sold Luke Shaw, Dejan Lovren, Callum Chambers, Rickie Lambert and Jack Cork. The following year they didn't only lose Morgan Schneiderlin - they sold Nathaniel Clyne, too.
And despite banking £34m for Sadio Mane, they also cashed in on Victor Wanyama, Graziano Pelle and Jose Fonte in the same campaign. Jay Rodriguez went the same season that £75m was received for Virgil Van Dyk.
So let's not pretend this was all inevitable. Not including the cheapest deals and free transfers, Southampton have shipped out 14 players of significance in four seasons - and not all to Champions League clubs, either.
Southampton's selling policy has seen them dragged into a relegation battle this season
West Brom, West Ham and Swansea have also been beneficiaries of Southampton's transfer policy and even if the deals have not all worked out, even if Southampton have sold for impressive prices, the sheer upheaval at the club each season was always going to have a debilitating effect eventually.
Equally, if players hadn't been moved on in such numbers initially, who knows if Southampton might have been able to challenge for one of those Champions League positions? After all, Leicester did.
The money from the elite will continue to be irresistible if Southampton's selling ensures they have no chance of making the Champions League. To lose one, two, even three senior players, may indeed be the way of the world. To lose 14 suggests a plan; one that has now begun to backfire.