I HAVE been on radio this week talking about Bury boss David Flitcroft's comments about the standard of refereeing in the lower levels of the Football League.

In many respects I understand his views, but I don’t necessarily agree with his desire to see professional referees at every level.

I don’t actually believe that the standard of refereeing has improved in the Premier League since all the officials were made professional.

What has actually happened is that they have merely become more robotic.

They are now so obsessed with following the letter of the law that they have forgotten how to apply common sense.

I also believe that they have become even more distant from the players they are officiating.

When I was playing you could talk to the officials, and they were all the same at every level.

Now, when a top-tier referee drops down to officiate a game at a lower level they arrive at a club all togged up in their Premier League suits and make this grand entrance – it feels like some sort of Hollywood star has dropped in.

The referees who are striving to reach the pinnacle just take on the same characteristics – they end up becoming more robotic too.

In my mind the system does need a shake-up, I agree with Flicker on that, but I don’t think professionalism is the answer, it doesn’t seem to be working.

Michael Oliver is a good example. He was held up this week for the way he handled the FA Cup quarter-final between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford.

Basically, he had a good game, but everyone conveniently forgot the fact he let off Manchester City’s Joe Hart earlier in the season for what amounted to a head-butt.

The fact is that referees are just like players – they have good games and bad games.

So I think it is wrong to put any of the guys refereeing in the Premier League on a pedestal – it has just created a two-tier system that seems in some way now to be skewed.

You will always find, as well, that the managers voicing their concerns after a game are almost always the ones who lost. You can’t please all the people all of the time.

Flicker made the point that Kevin Johnson made a rod for his own back in Saturday’s defeat against Oxford by booking Adam El-Abd inside the opening 10 minutes.

But if he judged the Bury centre-back to have committed a professional foul – bringing down visiting striker Danny Hylton when he had a run on goal – then he deserved a yellow card.

It doesn’t matter whether the foul was committed in the first minute or the 90th, that should not be allowed to cloud his thinking.