GRAHAM Poll gave two free kicks for feet being high in the first 25 minutes at Anfield on Monday.

Neither was more than four feet off the ground nor within a foot of the opposition players' face.

When Poll refereed the recent Manchester derby at Old Trafford he gave a free kick against Darius Vassell for a similarly debatable foot-up offence.

Earlier in the same game, however, Rio Ferdinand raised his foot so high that he kicked Micah Richards in the face as the City player attempted to head an equaliser from six yards.

It was a blatant case of foot-up that Poll waved away.

So when is raising a foot high an offence in Poll's book? When it happens outside the penalty area, of course.

It is not the only inconsistency Poll has been guilty of. In the World Cup last year he booked Saudi Arabia's Saud Khariri for kicking the ball away in the game against Ukraine.

At Liverpool on Monday, he should have booked Wanderers' Abdoulaye Faye for blatantly kicking the ball away. But the ref bottled it because he would have had to send Faye off after giving him a yellow card seconds earlier for a previous offence.

It wasn't common sense either for Poll to let Faye off. Quite the opposite because in future when a player kicks the ball away and Poll's the ref, the offender can argue that he should show him the same leniency that he showed Faye.