Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho suggested referee Phil Dowd was "too slow" to keep up with the play at a crucial moment in his side's 5-3 defeat against Tottenham at White Hart Lane.
Football Association officials may look at Mourinho's comments that echo similar barbs from former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson following his side's game against Arsenal in April 2013.
While the Chelsea boss did his best to restrain his criticisms of the match officials at the end of a thrilling New Year's Day game, his hint that Dowd -- an official who has lost plenty of weight since those accusations from Ferguson -- was lacking in pace may be viewed as somewhat derogatory.
Mourinho was convinced that his side should have been given a penalty when they were 1-0 ahead and the ball struck Jan Vertonghen's hand in the Tottenham penalty box, with his complaints coming just a few days after he claimed a "clear campaign" was underway to stop his side winning penalties in the Premier League.
"First of all I don't want to be punished. I want to be [on the touchline] for the next match, so I prefer just to say we lost," he began, as he tried to contain his composure in an interview with BT Sport. "Tomorrow is another day, Sunday is another match, that was all.
"I prefer just to focus on the result because if I focus on the crucial moment of the game, you have exactly the same opinion that I have. It was a crucial minute of the game when a result could go 2-0 and game over."
Mourinho went on to suggest Eden Hazard had informed him that a contentious second-half challenge from Federico Fazio was not worthy of a red card, but he was adamant that Vertonghen's first-half handball should have been punished.
"There is an action on Eden Hazard and he tells me, honest as always, that in his opinion was not a foul and not a red card," he continued. "That's good, despite Mr Dowd being too slow to go with that ball and he was like 40 yards away, he made the right decision.
"The decision he was 10 meters away he could not make and that was the crucial decision of the game. I hate to lose, but I prefer to lose like the way we did against Newcastle; with a clean performance by [referee Martin] Atkinson, an unlucky performance by us, a lucky performance by Newcastle.
"A game you lose because of football is a different feeling and we had important Christmas gifts in the last two matches and the gifts that people who are in love with football doesn't like."
Asked at the post-match news conference whether the campaign he spoke about following his side's 1-1 draw at Southampton was in evidence once again in this game, Mourinho added: "With the result 1-0, one clear action could make it 2-0. Normally, at 2-0, the result would be completely different and the history of the game would be different.
"I'm more shocked with other things than to concede five goals. Where I am shocked is that, in three days, we had two incredible decisions that punished us in a very hard way.
"We had one [point] out of [a possible] six when two crucial decisions would give us six points. What matters are the points. The decisions, the normal tendency is for people to forget the decisions."
Mourinho went on to concede his team had contributed to their own downfall, on a day when the Blues defensive solidity was exposed by a rampant Tottenham.
"I think we made some individual defensive mistakes," he added. "It was not easy for my defenders to cope with a good [Nacer] Chadli and especially a good [Harry] Kane. It was also very difficult for Tottenham defenders to cope with an amazing [Eden] Hazard and an amazing Diego Costa."