Saints have been charged by the Football Association following the penalty incident at Norwich City.

Saints now face a charge of failing to ensure their players behave in an orderly fashion" after the controversila late penalty incident at Carrow Road last Saturday, whilst i dont condone this behaviour I have to say that it is no better or worse than I see at most other Premier League games week in week out when controversial refereeing decisions rear their ugly head and that being the case then Saints should be at the back of a long long cue.

Indeed I find it hard to see how the FA can level the charge, if any Saints player had been out of order then surely Mark Clattenburg being familiar with the laws of the game would have sent them off, the fact that no red cards were issued perhaps suggests that either Saints werent out of control as the FA suggests or that Clattenburg himself had lost control of the game and had failed to do his job properly, in the case of a bad tackle if the referee has dealt with it then the FA dont take retrospective action even if it then appears the ref had made the wrong decision in not issuing a red card are they now employing double standards?

As I say im not condoning Saints behaviour, I for one want to see petulance driven out of the game, but the lead has to come from the FA and they have to back their referees, too many times we see players get in the faces of referees who then fail to apply the letter of the law by sending that player off, scream obscenities at a ref in Sunday morning football and call him an "Fffffing C" and you will get a red card, so why is does it happen so rarely in professional football >

The answer is that refs are running scared of applying the laws of the game, they are scared to send players off because the players are now out of control, a referee knows that if he actually applies the letters of the law then he will send off at least a couple of players a game and that then the FA will get on his case, he will get a reputation and will probably end up downgraded, this is totally wrong, Im not saying have a zero tolerance policy for swearing etc, but I am saying there needs to be a certain line that players know they cant cross and that if they do they will get a red card and can have no complaints.

But as i say the real problem lies with the FA who are not backing their own men, a crackdown is needed otherwise how is it fair to let players scream and swear at a ref week in week out, then charge them with isolated incidents like this, players need to know where the benchmarks lie, if you let them cross those lines week in week out with no consequence, then you cant act all indignant when they do it in incidents like this.

As I said Im not condoning Saints behavior, no matter how bad the referee's decision was it should not happen, but the fact is something has to be done as supporters are getting sick of seeing a player on £35k a week with his red contorted face up close to a referee complaining that he hasnt won the throw in that he thought he should have had, players nowadays are indulged as spoilt children and we wonder why they behave as such.     

Photo: Action Images

ericofarabia added 08:32 - Mar 13 Saints now face a charge of failing to ensure their players behave in an orderly fashion" after the controversila late penalty incident at Carrow Road last Saturday, whilst i dont condone this behaviour I have to say that it is no better or worse than I see at most other Premier League games week in week out when controversial refereeing decisions rear their ugly head and that being the case then Saints should be at the back of a long long CUE. Well that's us snookered then ;-)

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SaintNick added 08:44 - Mar 13 I wonder who might have "Spotted" that
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Scummer added 09:29 - Mar 13 It wasn't good to see. It wasn't so long ago that Adkins stated in public that it was something his players did not do. I can understand their frustration though. Rotten decision that looked like it was going to leave them boing from a game they deserved to win, and the final straw as Saints have been on the wrong end too often for it to now "even out over a season". They should have video refs, and the captain should be limited to, say, three recourses to the video ref. he would then have said no pen and Holt would have had the yellow card that he deserved. I like the rugby yellow card system. Take them off the pitch for ten minutes. It would soon stop.

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Scummer added 09:37 - Mar 13 Nothing, not boing. Stupid autocorrect.
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Jesus_02 added 10:37 - Mar 13 Isn’t this why we have teams like Saints in the Premier League...We are often made an example of. It will al least fill the papers for a while. Imagine that the inevitable fine will be compared to the others dealt out for racist abuse ect. I don’t condone the behaviour...but is it actually worse in the eyes of the FA than blatant cheating? Holt threw himself in from of Shaw like a member of the skate supporters trust throwing themselves in front of the 6:57 when they realise that they actually have to spend their own Giro's

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SalisburySaint added 10:55 - Mar 13 It's typical of the FA's double standards that Saints get charged for contessting a terrible decision form Clattenburg only shown on highlights programmes, whilst Rio gets away with assaulting Torres, which clearly shown on Live TV
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Scummer added 10:56 - Mar 13 Lazy journalists keep comparing Holt to Rickie, but I just don't get it. Rickie is a class act and one of the best all round forward men in the league, whereas Holt is a dirty cheating lump. It was an ugly dive, and he should feel shame when he looks at himself in the mirror. Unless he has been listening to too many pundits who think that a player is OK to collapse to the ground like a sack of sh*te because there has been a slight bit of contact that they engineered in the first place. It's enough to make you pine for the more honest football of League 1...

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Scummer added 10:57 - Mar 13 Again, also not condoning the behaviour of the players of managers. They should take their punishment and make sure they don't repeat the mistake. It is harder to take the moral high ground when they are haranguing the ref in that way.
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slynch added 11:38 - Mar 13 Saints were about top of the Fair Play League with a good chance of qualifying for Europe. All that's out of the window now! Cortese should send written warnings to all the players and managers concerned and any appropriate internal discipline should be implemented to the maximum penalty. And especially as regards the Captain, who ever that was; Captaincy is not a gong it's a responsibility and he should have been controlling the player and dealing with the issues himself. Aside from that, arguing with the referee is hardly likely to change his mind and is consequently pointless. If the team was in a stronger position I'd put out a reserve team next week!

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ItchenNorth added 13:18 - Mar 13 This is imo a perfect example of why technology needs to be introduced into our game. In the amount of time it takes for a ref to calm everyone down, re-assess the situation, possibly talk to the linesman and then finally make his decision (on any number of issues including the foul itself or subsequent cards for player dissent) a replay could have been viewed in a quarter of the time ! If replays were allowed for anything directly related to a disputed goal or penalty award players would not feel the need to conform the ref, because they would know that 99% of the rulings would be correct and properly considered. One problem solved. Personally I think Saturday showed us that our players care, which is always good to see (if the line isn’t crossed). It also showed us the Maurico Pochettino has some fight in his belly, which I like in a manager. Finally it might also put a stop to our fair play entry into the Europa League ! All good then !

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LostBoys added 16:05 - Mar 13 Ok we should not do it but it shows they care. For the record I only expect the referees and linos to get the easy decisions correct and officiate the obvious. They did not do that when it was clear someone had shot Holt to make him go down that quickly (probably a Norwich supporter as we were having too much fun with him. Also the lino in front of where we were stood was appalling in both halves. I spoke to a couple of the players at breakfast at breakfast on Sunday and they said Clattenberg 'did not have a good game'

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