I THINK we would have seen another great FA Cup shock on Wednesday night, had two men kept their heads.

Neil Lennon was quite right to have a go at referee Roger East – his personal performance in that game simply wasn’t good enough, considering he is an elite professional with Premier League experience.

But I’ll bet the Bolton boss also had a few harsh words for Neil Danns because after picking up such a cheap caution in the first half, the last thing he needed to do was give the referee an excuse to send him off later on.

In the official's case it comes down to managing players. In a game of that importance you have to know which tackles are careless and which are reckless. And that is where Roger failed for most of the night, in my opinion.

When Danns steams into the tackle on Joe Allen in the first half, you take him to one side, give him a rollicking and send him on his way. Instead it’s that evaluation system coming into play again, making Roger feel he has to issue a caution.

You can’t have any complaint with the second one. Danns is better than that and he knows he’s let his team down.

Unlike the first instance, that one was a nailed on booking. But I’d like to know what would have happened if the tackles had been the other way round – I wonder whether Roger would have thought twice and kept him on the pitch?

The game was 1-0 at that point and if Danns stays on, I’m not sure Liverpool get back into the game. But once they scored, I said to my wife there was another goal coming before full-time, and so it proved.

I got tweets from Wanderers fans saying the referee had been shocking, and I can see why they would be disappointed.

Having said all that, I think Bolton were very lucky to get the penalty.

You only have to look at Zach Clough when he got up, looking a bit sheepish, he knew there hadn’t been much contact and might have been expecting a caution for simulation.

I think East’s recognition of foul and non-foul was sub-standard all night.

Dorian Dervite got away with one in the first half that was a clear foul on Raheem Sterling – and while some of the Wanderers fans might disagree with me, he is not a player who goes to ground easily.

I don’t think Brendan Rodgers was too pleased either. He’s normally one who would go out of his way to shake your hand after a game but he brushed straight past Roger and also had his say in the post-match interviews.

It was a shame for Bolton to finish a good cup run like that but I think the club know their priorities are in the league.

They’ve got a few quid out of the three games so far – and I’m sure Phil Gartside is pleased that the tills have been collecting pennies.

I think the fans can be very proud of the way their club played over the course of two games, and here’s hoping it leads to success in the rest of the season.

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JUST when Mark Clattenburg gets back in the good books he gets lumbered with the week from hell.

I’ve been campaigning through this column for ages for him to be given some live games, and sure enough he was excellent in the Manchester City v Chelsea match last weekend.

Unlike Roger East in Bolton’s FA Cup tie, he showed how to manage players early on in the game when he could have cautioned Nemanja Matic and Ramires.

We got through 90 minutes and no one was talking about the referee, except to say how good he was. How refreshing is that?

He was rewarded with the West Ham v Manchester United game on Sunday, which is a great contest, until you consider what is going on around it.

Our top refs are over in Athens at the moment on a UEFA course ahead of the Champions League and Europa League games.

Mark comes back from that, does the West Ham game, travels back home to the North East, and then has somehow been lumbered with Bournemouth v Leeds on Tuesday night!

You always hear managers complain about fixture schedules, or their players’ workload, but how often do we take into account the fact a referee drives himself to all these games – and then might also have international fixtures thrown in.

It’s crazy that the PGMOL (the referees' ruling body) don’t just talk to the people involved.

Refs know their bodies and whether they can take the strain – and you’d bet Neil Lennon and Brendan Rodgers will be asking the players who turned out on Wednesday how they feel instead of just throwing them straight back out there and expecting a top-level performance.