Is It Time That Chelsea and Jose Mourinho Cleaned Up Their Act?

Jose Mourinho was in fighting mood on Friday.

If his Chelsea players had been feeling upset and aggrieved after their Champions League exit on Wednesday, their manager used his pre-Southampton press conference to set the precedent for what is to come in the closing stages of the campaign.

Mourinho isn't going to cry his way to May, and by default, that means his players won't either.

As the Chelsea boss commented after crashing out of the Champions League, Chelsea "have a Premier League to win," and he intends to do just that.

Yet there is a cloud hanging over Stamford Bridge right now.

As well as their early exit from European competition, Chelsea have had to deal with plenty of criticism for their conduct in the away-goals defeat to Paris Saint-Germain.

It's mainly been focused on the perception that Chelsea players influenced the referee in the dismissal of Zlatan Ibrahimovic, surrounding him with their protests after the PSG striker's tackle on Oscar.

Mourinho refused to comment on that, but he did have some interesting words for Sky Sports pundits Jamie Carragher and Graeme Souness.

Both had been vocal in their condemnation of Chelsea players in the aftermath of the PSG game.

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

"The reaction from the Chelsea players is disgraceful,” Carragher said on Sky Sports (per the Guardian). "It comes from Mourinho’s teams: it’s not a one-off.

"I always think with Mourinho’s teams that they will always be respected but never loved because of situations like this. They take winning to a level that no other team or manager does."

Mourinho sees things differently.

"Jamie stopped playing two years ago and he has forgot everything he did on the pitch," he quipped.

"Mr Souness also forgot, but he had stopped to play a very long time. He also forgets that a couple of years after he left Benfica, I coached Benfica. I know a lot about him, I know so much about him.

"But obviously I am from a certain kind of education, not just in football, but especially in life. I prefer to laugh and I prefer to say that the envy is the biggest tribute that the shadows do to the man."

Phil Cole/Getty Images

Cue the comparisons with Eric Cantona's famous seagulls and trawlers quote, but Mourinho has a point.

Criticism of Chelsea's players has been justified these past few days. Ibrahimovic will feel rightly aggrieved for his red card, one that can still have consequences for PSG's Champions League campaign given he will serve a one-match ban.

Only Bjorn Kuipers will know if he would have dismissed Ibrahimovic without the Chelsea protests, though we're not dealing with a Chelsea problem here.

This is football's problem. It always has been.

In the days of Roy Keane's reign as Manchester United captain, referee Andy D'Urso can testify to how United would pressurise match officials.

Arsene Wenger's Arsenal have done it and, as he suggested, Carragher in a Liverpool shirt was far from the morally intact figure he portrays in a TV studio.

Paul Gilham/Getty Images

PSG themselves were guilty of haranguing Kuipers at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, notably after a Diego Costa challenge on Thiago Silva in the second half. David Luiz even feigned injury to suggest Costa had head-butted him.

The difference in that instance is the referee saw right through it. Costa was booked, as was Luiz, and the controversy dispersed with it.

As Kuipers wasn't influenced, does it make PSG's protests any less worse than Chelsea's? Of course it doesn't.

And the fact the referee refused to buckle in that moment, it didn't prevent PSG harassing him at other stages of the game.

Wherever managers and players feel they can gain an advantage over opponents, they take it. They will always try their luck.

It's naive to suggest they don't, folly to imply Chelsea are the only team willing to push the boundaries in the pursuit of victory.

Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

It isn't Mourinho who has put football in this position. His team may be under the microscope right now, but it's years of inaction from the authorities that has led us to this point.

FIFA remain anti-technology, seemingly unwilling to assist referees in their jobs. UEFA's continued insistence on using a the fifth officials behind goals hasn't made much of an impact, either.

Successive regimes have allowed this to rumble on, and the refusal to adapt the rules of the game to ensure players can no longer protest en masse means we'll be seeing plenty more of it for the foreseeable future.

Chelsea and Mourinho play the role of pantomime villain well, but we should forget whether or not they need to clean up their act.

That responsibility lies with the whole of football.

Garry Hayes is Bleacher Report's lead Chelsea correspondent. All quotes were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted. Follow him on Twitter @garryhayes