FAT SAM

AlLARDyce said: 'Ben Haim has not done anything wrong and he has not broken any rules.

'The rules say that you can't put your hands up in somebody's face no matter how small or how big. If you get pushed in the face, what do you do? If I went into a pub on New Year's Eve and slapped somebody, I would not expect him to get up and say 'cheers' and ask if I wanted a pint.

'What did you want Tal to do? Would it be better if he had stood up and thumped him and been more of a man? Would that be the answer?'

He then babbled on: 'We have challenged it, we don't think Ben Haim did
anything wrong.

'He overreacted but we feel we have a right to defend him and have got a good case.

'I have never known this to happen before. We can pull out other similar incidents that have gone without any charges.'

He also believes video evidence of each game needs to be used.

'We are pushing more and more towards technology coming into the game and the FA cannot hide.

'We will all benefit from that in the end. Anybody who says we should not have cameras is, to me, an antiquated person in the modern game."

'The positive thing out of this would be to use the cameras and make decisions at games. It would only take seconds to decide if an incident was a penalty, a red card or a goal. The FA can now produce this evidence so they should take it one step further and cut out the aggravation.

'It would even add to the excitement if home and away fans waited to see if there was a red or a green light to give the decision.'

Now then, let's not get carried away.