It is almost 40 years since World Soccer Referee, Jack Taylor's autobiography, was published, but perhaps its foreword is worth bearing in mind now it seems there is virtually nobody left in the modern game who wants to speak on behalf of the people officiating our games.

"Referees have the most difficult job in the world. They've got to make split-second decisions and don't have the chance to sit back and ponder what they should do. I fear that, at times, we managers feel referees should be absolutely perfect for 90 minutes and that everything has to be dead right every second of the game. Yet we can't get this as managers. We don't always pick the right team, carry out the right training method and book the right hotels. Players don't put every pass right, and coaches don't always bring youngsters through as they should. So we're wrong in expecting referees to be perfect when we're not perfect ourselves."

They are the words, believe it or not, of Don Revie, a man hardly renowned for making life easy for referees during his Leeds United years. Yet Revie made some fine points that still feel relevant now, at a time when so many managers are choosing an entirely different option, stockpiling grievances, convincing themselves they are the victims of a prolonged injustice and that it is different for every other team.

Even before we get to the issue of whatever was said or not to Mikel John Obi, there is no doubt Mark Clattenburg made a significant error sending off Fernando Torres last Sunday and that, for Chelsea, there were considerable repercussions. It happens, it is an unshakeable fact of football life and it must be annoying for the people involved. Yet Roberto Di Matteo had had several days of reflection before his assessment later in the week that it was always Chelsea who lost out.

"We just want to be treated fairly," he said. Then he cited another disputed red card, for José Bosingwa, during a game at QPR last season. "It's incredible that it always hits Chelsea football club."

In fairness to Di Matteo, he is not the only manager afflicted by the why-always-us germ. Brendan Rodgers has told us several times that it is always Liverpool. Kenny Dalglish used to say the same to anyone who cared to listen when he was at Anfield, even putting on a Powerpoint presentation one day to try to validate his argument. Tony Pulis would like us to know it is always Stoke, and Mike Riley, running the Professional Game Match Officials, still has the letter Brian Marwood sent him last season complaining that it was always Manchester City.

Around the same time, Patrick Vieira, one of Marwood's colleagues, said he did not want to entertain the idea there was an agenda against the club, but then did precisely that. "You are asking yourself if something is wrong, if people don't want us to win the league," Vieira said. "It feels like anything City do will be amplified and punished, compared to the other teams and other players."

Perhaps it would not be so tiresome were it not that, amid this stampede to be seen as permanently wronged, the relevant clubs, managers and supporters conveniently ignore anything that does not fall into the narrative.

In Liverpool's case, say, they have legitimate grievances about some of the decisions that have gone against Luis Suárez this season. They also overlook that he should have been sent off at Everton last Sunday and, at times, it has felt like the classic diversion tactic. Liverpool, in 2012, have taken 28 points from 28 matches, losing 14 and winning seven. Since the Bill Shankly era, only one other Liverpool manager, Roy Hodgson, has had a worse start than Rodgers's total of 10 points from his first nine league games. Throw in a Capital One Cup defeat at home to Swansea and, all things considered, it probably suits Rodgers if the talk is about referees and hard-luck stories.

But nobody sticks up for the man in the middle. Never mind the fact the PGMO assessors, using independent Prozone statistics, have concluded 93% of refereeing decisions this season have been correct (99% for offsides). Or that England is one of only three countries to have three referees – Howard Webb, Martin Atkinson and Clattenburg – on Fifa's elite list. Which is why, incidentally, a dozen or so referees from the J-League are over here now to see what they can learn. Others arrive soon from the Australian and Asian federations. It is only in England where the perception of English referees is poor.

The profession has certainly come under extreme scrutiny since a serious one-off allegation, denied by Clattenburg, has somehow morphed into a wider debate, often hostile, about the faults of our referees – the sense, perhaps, that they want to be too cosy with the players, and maybe even crave a share of the fame.

It doesn't actually work that way at all. How many times have you seen a referee in Hello! lately? When was the last time you saw a referee take part in any form of interview? It simply doesn't happen. PGMO rules stop officials from doing any media duties and, if you didn't know that, it's probably because, well, they don't like to talk about it.

All we really know about the referees – their personalities, their family lives, their accents, their backgrounds – is very little beyond guesswork and assumptions. So an opinion of Clattenburg is formed on the basis that he is from the north-east but has that all-year tan and, heaven forbid, used to own a BMW X5. The caricature is of someone who wants to be the star, the big I am, waving to people from his car. Except that's what it is: a caricature. Back in the real world, the people who actually know him properly say he is a fairly private man who just wishes, among other things, that the television crews would get off his front lawn.

As for the motor, I suspect I'm not alone in finding it preferable to see someone in his 30s, at the top of his profession, driving around in a nice car rather than some of the kids in football these days who have barely played a game yet still have the keys to any number of dream machines.

Sometimes, yes, referees don't help themselves. Their body language can grate (I'm thinking of you, Mike Dean). Maybe Riley, as the top man, should come out publicly more often to offer their side. It was slightly disconcerting, too, to see the way Mark Halsey greeted Gary Cahill before a match at Chelsea last season, bear-hugging like old pals. Halsey used to train at Bolton Wanderers, Cahill's former club, and in football's bubble of paranoia it is probably not surprising questions have been asked about the rights and wrongs of it.

The bigger point, however, is that the persecution complex is never attractive in any walk of life. Referees make mistakes and sometimes they can have damaging consequences. Sometimes it might come in a cluster and compound the sense of grievance and, when that happens, a manager is probably entitled to the occasional blow-out. But can we not just accept it for what it is – human error – rather than insinuating there is something more to it?