PLENTY has been made of the touchline spat between Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho on Sunday.

The two scuffling on the sidelines has almost been the sole focus of attention since the match, rather than Chelsea’s 2-0 victory which took them five points clear at the top of the Premier League.

But was the pair’s latest falling-out really all that bad?

I would go so far as to say that it was quite entertaining, even if it was in a pantomime, handbags-at-dawn sort of way, with Wenger shoving his counterpart with all the force of a school playground fight.

Critics are quick to claim the moral high ground in such situations by saying these are the types of incidents “we don’t want to see”.

In fact, the opposite is true. We do want to see them and, it seems, the more the merrier.

Why do the television companies train cameras on the technical areas?

It’s not because they think two people standing still for 90 minutes occasionally waving their arms about makes good viewing.

It’s because the technical areas place two, often highly-charged individuals in close proximity and, as a result, things can kick-off.

Particularly when the two protagonists genuinely don’t like each other.

As was the case at Stamford Bridge.

I’m not suggesting managers go the whole hog and have a punch-up, but what happened in the heat of battle on Sunday was pretty harmless in the grand scheme of things.

No-one got hurt.

At least they showed a bit of passion – which is what sport is all about.

Players square up to each other all the time and, as long as they don’t cross the line into physical violence, the game goes on.

If the football authorities want to stop such scenes on the touchline they need to abolish the technical areas.

Or switch off the cameras.