BLACKBURN Rovers are slipping deep into the relegation mire on a flood tide of red cards -- and manager Roy Hodgson saw red himself at Old Trafford, following the club's fifth dismissal of the season.

Tim Sherwood's sending-off prompted a furious response from Hodgson especially when I asked him if the captain would be fined for a misdemeanour that will also cost him a three-match ban.

The incident with David Beckham can also only have widened the rift between the captain and manager after their differences earlier this season.

"What do you want to fine him? £1,000, £5,000, £50,000, £150,000, ban him sine die, what difference does it make?" blasted Hodgson.

"It seems to me that people are always interested in fines but they have never interested me because it's too bloody late.

"Don't tell me that Tim Sherwood, after all these years, hasn't realised that he has made a crucial error. Don't tell me Tim Sherwood hasn't realised that he has cost us three points and possibly three points in the future. "If he has got to get a fine to do that, then it's a sad, sad world.

"But if the club wants to fine him, the club can fine him.

"I really don't care one way or the other, I'll be perfectly honest about it.

"It doesn't make me any richer, it doesn't get me any more points and it doesn't help me to win the next game.

"But if they want to take a few quid off him, fine."

Hodgson felt the incident was "minor".

"Tim Sherwood and David Beckham got themselves involved in what was an extremely minor incident, a ridiculous incident really, and there was no need for either of them to be involved," he said.

"But Tim Sherwood can't say he didn't realise because we see it week after week, players being sent off for supposedly elbowing opponents.

"Very rarely does the actual elbow make any contact with the opponent whatsoever.

"But he has lifted his elbow and he has moved it in the direction of the player, been sent off and we have paid the price.

"Tim is very displeased with himself. I would have liked to have defended him but I have seen the incident on television.

"I still say it was a minor incident. But with his experience and as captain of the team if I criticise him then he hasn't got a leg to stand on."

Hodgson admited Sherwood had to go the way things are today but added: "There was no contact as such. He (Beckham) played on for the rest of the time.

"The last time someone put his elbow in my face, he broke my nose.

"I am not prepared to criticise Beckham at all. Players do what they do and I am not here to moralise about that."

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