Recent high profile cases in the EPL involving Jay Spearing (red card) two footed challenge where ball was clearly won,Vincent Kompany (red card) two footed challenge where ball was won and last night Glen Johnson, two footed challenge and ball won but no card.

Is the modern game becoming too soft? Should refs allow their common sense to influence their decisions? or should two footed challenges be totally outlawed regardless of winning the ball cleanly?

Discuss....

Winning the ball does not mean it is not a foul, and is in fact irrelevant.

Common sense should always prevail, but unfortunately they have a rule book to follow!

Difficult to judge because I don't know if the rules give an objective description of a "two footed tackle"
Generally speaking the only way to get consistency is to apply the written rules. As much as common sense sounds like common sense it should only be applied to minor infringements because otherwise decisions become subjective and therefore inconsistent.
I suppose the question then becomes what is a minor infringement.

Over to our resident expert Mike Gill?

Thanks jim. Cheque in a brown envelope!

As a ref, you have to consider:

Was the challenge reckless and dangerous

Was the safety of the opponent in danger

Could it cause a serious injury

Was the ball within playing distance

All in the space of a split second!

I agree that some might say that means any tackle but think we have all witnessed challenges and went "oh ya" after it has happened. For me, as soon as I do that, a red is normally warrented. I do try and think most refs take each case on its own but pressures to get to you. Some you get spot on, some totally wrong and others that there could be many differences of opinion.

I only saw the Kompany tackle and agreed with red.

We have guidelines in the laws of the game book, which can be viewed on the sfa website.

It will be a subject that can be argued for ages. Even sometimes at ref meetings, there can be disagreement.

They are not 'rules'. They are 'laws'.

This is perhaps going off at a tangent but I think a huge problem is whether a player has to 'take the hit'.

If a tackle is clearly dangerous, where the tackler misses the ball completely and comes in at force, the attacker has two choices:

1) take the hit, earn a free-kick and break his leg

2) jump out of the way, be labelled a diver and earn a booking

The tackle is still the same mistimed, bad tackle, but the attacker's reaction to it seems to determine who gets booked. I'm sure nearly everyone on this forum would react via route 2 if they were in the live situation.

What are your thoughts Mike, would you send a tackler off for missing everything if they lunged in dangerously?

At Falkirk last week, Falkirk were rightly awarded a foul. Before play resumed the Falkirk player kicked out at David White , chopping the legs from him and leaving him on the turf. I believe it's called violent conduct.

Ref's decision - no action.

Perhaps another thing the refs have to take into account is who's the big team.

If it's in the rules that you're not allowed to tackle with two feet. Players shouldn't tackle with two feet. Seems simple.

Look they are the laws of the game, not the bloody rules. Rules are for Monopoly.

Woops.

By the way, you forgot a comma after your first word there.

Happens all the time,wee team gets nothing.

Referees are quite clearly interpreting the laws of the game differently, the lack of consistency is the most frustrating for fans. That has been highlighted manys a time, but when you see a sending off for a clean challenge where the ball has been won with no complaints and then see and off the ball kick go unpunished, it is very annoying.