Chelsea lodge formal complaint and insist everything has been done by the book

Chelsea insisted they had done everything by the book during the Mark Clattenburg affair after lodging a formal complaint with the Football Association over “inappropriate language” they claim the referee used against John Obi Mikel.

The European champions have come under fire in some quarters for alleging Clattenburg used words understood to have been interpreted as racist towards Mikel and Juan Mata during Sunday’s acrimonious Barclays Premier League defeat to Manchester United.