When I analyse a game what I like to do is look at the performance of the players individually and collectively and make a judgement on what I've seen.

That way I can reason what went wrong when we lose and what we did well when we win.

What I hate to do is to include other factors that should be peripheral to the proceedings who, more or less, decide the outcome through bad judgement.

Step forward Mr Mark Halsey.

Now, I'm not one to bash referees at the first given opportunity, it's a thankless task and having been involved in football at grass roots level for a number of years I can appreciate that more than most.

There are times though when, for whatever reason, the officials get things horribly wrong and the sending off of Zurab on Saturday was a prime example.

First, Halsey gives a penalty and then the assistant informs him that the incident was outside the box and he changes his mind (quite rightly) and awards a free kick.

Then, probably influenced by the Liverpool players and supporters, he has to make a decision if the player who fouled Cisse was the last man and denied a clear goalscoring opportunity (where he appeared to once again consult the assistant).

Finally, he makes his way towards Nelsen to administer the red card before realising that he'd got the wrong defender!

I'm all for using the assistants for clarification on big decisions but to get it wrong on three separate occasions in one incident surely opens the door for Stevie Wonder to join the referees panel.

In one fell swoop our chances of winning the game, and make no bones about it we were well in the game prior to the red card, had disappeared.

I'm pretty sure that I'll be corrected on the various clauses and sub-sections of the ruling on professional fouls elsewhere in this paper in future but I'd like to put it another way, would the same decision have been reached had it been a Liverpool player who committed the foul?

How did Rovers end the game with three yellow cards and one red compared to none for Liverpool? Why did the referee deem Alonso's cynical foul on Pedersen early in the game unworthy of a booking yet Savage got punished for winning a 50-50 late on?

It's yet another example of the big club/small club divide that exists in the Premiership and unfortunately the fans, the players and the management will have to live with that.

On the subject of management one has to admire the measured response from Mark Hughes on TV after the game.

Where some managers (and certainly his predecessor) would have been more forthright on their opinions Hughes just calmly remarked that he thought the referee had made a mistake and that he would appeal.

In a business where it's his job that is on the line he deserves great credit for that and not reinforcing the media myth that portrays everything about the club in a poor light.