As Arsene Wenger stood crucified on the steps at Old Trafford, it became conclusively clear that English football's campaign to neuter managers is gathering pace.
Wenger, guilty of the hideous and unforgivable crime of kicking an empty water bottle in frustration, was banished to the stands by a referee and fourth official who showed the combined intellect of a house plant.
What exactly was the Frenchman supposed to do having just seen his team's injury-time equaliser ruled out (legitimately) for offside? Shrug his shoulders and giggle dismissively? Jump for joy and hug his assistant? Cartwheels?
Of course not. He is a manager who is paid to get results. And that means he is naturally going to be passionate and emotional when those results don't go his way. I am sure Arsenal fans would have plenty to say if he wasn't.
Unfortunately, this incident is not isolated, it is merely the latest in a string of moves aimed at turning all the managers in English football into Sven Goran Eriksson clones.
Like, for example, the introduction of the technical area. What's all that about then? What possible difference can it make if a manager wanders down the touchline to give one of his defenders an earful?
Obviously you don't want managers running off to taunt opposing fans. But where's the harm in them being given the freedom of the touchline to rally their troops? Why confine them to a little chalked box and then tell them off every time they step outside it? Treating grown men like naughty children is an insult to their intelligence. A rule just for the sake of having a rule.
Then, of course, there are the fourth officials - men who are employed almost exclusively to make sure the managers don't do or say anything naughty while they are confined to their white line prison.
Yes, of course, they do have all that board holding to do, which is frightfully important. Otherwise, though, their only real mission is to babysit two grown men as they prowl around their technical areas like caged lions. And then tell tales to the referee when either of them gets a bit frisky.
Surely the employment of a fourth official is a resource that would have considerably more value if they were seated in front of a monitor watching replays and telling the referee every time he makes a glaring error.
I can only imagine the authorities are scared that while the fourth official was busy observing the match on a television screen, the two managers would be cheekily sticking their legs outside their technical areas while he isn't watching.
But it's not just inside the grounds that the emancipation of the modern manager is taking place. Off it they are just as likely to get into trouble for having anything even closely resembling an opinion. Which is where the 'bringing the game into disrepute' charge comes in.
What an absolutely wonderful catch-all charge this is. If any manager, in any division, at any time, for any reason, says something the FA doesn't like, they're slapped with a 'disrepute' charge.
Why shouldn't they be allowed to speak their minds? Yes, they should stop short of libel and defamation, but if a referee has had an absolute nightmare of a game why on earth can't a manager say, er, "the referee had an absolute nightmare of a game"? He would only be publicly voicing what millions of people are thinking.
Do the FA actually believe that when a manager speaks out publicly about a refereeing error people everywhere shake their heads and mutter "that's football's reputation ruined then".
At the end of the day it's the managers' jobs that are on the line, and censoring them is just plain nonsense in a day and age when freedom of speech is supposed to be the free world's God-given right.
How often in post-match interviews do you hear a team boss saying they had better watch what they say or they'll get in trouble with the authorities?
Instead of being able to get it off their chests they are forced to wade through a verbal minefield for fear of a clampdown and fine. The truth is the people who really bring football into 'disrepute' are the match officials themselves.
They often make mind-boggling decisions that are so awful it's like having Stevie Wonder in charge of the match. But do they get publicly humiliated and fined by the FA? Never. A quiet telling off in a darkened room and, possibly, a short-term demotion to a lower league. But no public lynching for the officials. That would be unseemly.
There was a time when managers were given the space and freedom to develop into genuine characters. When they stood on the touchline in their long overcoats, fag dangling from the corner of their mouths, dishing out instructions and swear words in equal measure. A time when, in their press conferences, they were not afraid to call a manual earth-moving instrument a spade.
Do we really want to see this process of sucking the life out of our managers continue? Do we really want to see those little technical areas occupied by quivering wrecks of men, afraid to step out of line or say something that may offend the sensitive ears of those delicate fourth officals?
Football managers have a tricky enough job as it is. Many of them, the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Wenger aside, spend their days constantly on the lookout for chairmen wielding large, back-friendly knives. On a daily basis they have to deal with young millionaires who earn considerably more money than they do and somehow get them to toe the line and, occasionally, play some football. And they have to deal with fans so notoriously fickle they can love you one day and consider you the devil's love child the next. They know they are always only one 5-0 home defeat away from joining the unemployed.
In any other industry, people working under those sort of conditions would be given extra care and attention. They would be singled out as an underpriveledged minority and showered in benefits, care programmes and therapy. I'm not suggesting football needs to go that far. But I really think the authorities need to get off their cases. Give them room to let off steam in any, non-violent or abusive way they fancy.
If Wenger wants to kick an empty water bottle 30 yards down the touchline when he sees his team fail, let him kick it. Heck, go a step further and line empty bottles on the edge of that stupid little technical area at each and every ground. Let the poor men vent.
When ultimately all England's managers are sitting silently on the bench for the full 90 minutes like neutered puppies, we will wonder where their passion and drive went.
And all we will have to do is take a glimpse at that iconic photo of Wenger standing in the Old Trafford crowd with his arms outstretched to remind us it was the FA that took a knife to their manhood.
sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com