Diary of a Sky Soccer Saturday Reporter

Sir Alex Ferguson is a great manager, there's absolutely no doubt about that. But there have been a number of times over the years that he's come out with a complete load of nonsense.

That certainly wasn't the case at the weekend when he spoke about the issue regarding the two-footed challenge. Ferguson called for some direction from the referees board, saying: “Inconsistency from referees is confusing everyone. Mike Riley should be coming out and saying: 'This is not allowed.' We've had enough debate on two-footed tackles, now something needs to happen." He's right. I've watched lots of matches in recent weeks, both live and on TV, and have seen several strong challenges result in red cards on some occasions but yellow cards on other occasions.

There's nothing in the rules that states that a player should automatically be sent off if he commits a two-footed challenge but that's how it's being interpreted by some referees.

Whether it's right or wrong doesn't really matter, the issue is that everyone needs to know how the referee will deal with tackles.