Bolton's former top Premier League referee talks football - every Wednesday.

DIEGO Costa should use the next few weeks to think about what kind of person he really wants to be.

A supremely talented footballer, someone you’d definitely want in your team if you managed in the Premier League, but is he someone you’d want your son or daughter to grow up emulating? I think not.

Whether you like it or not, the English game is a global one. Our product gets beamed around the world and people love the product.

I’ve spent the weekend in the Middle East working with Andy Gray and Richard Keys and to think what we’re doing is being watched by eyes across all the continents is incredible to me.

But surely there is a weight of responsibility on a footballer to understand this too?

The world is watching every move you make on that football field whether you are a manager, a player or a referee, and it’s about time some of them realised it.

No-one would have batted an eyelid had Mike Dean shown a red card to Costa in the second half as he tangled with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and the fact Jose Mourinho substituted him 60 seconds later tells you a lot.

One way or another they were going to get him – and the media storm that has followed the incident meant that a retrospective ban was almost a certainty.

But why just this one? What about Stephen Naismith or Costa’s indiscretions in the Everton-Chelsea game a couple of weekends ago?

Is this double standards? Isn’t it about time we got an extended panel of ex-referees sitting down on a Monday and analysing every incident fairly and evenly rather than just picking them out at random because the media get hot under the collar about a certain character?

The cameras pick up everything nowadays and there is no excuse for the FA not to be casting their net further and making sure every Premier League club gets treated the same way and not just the ones who fill the most column inches.

Gabriel was successful with his appeal against the straight red card for violent conduct, as I thought he would be. There had been earlier precedents set and it would have opened up a huge Pandora’s Box if they had overlooked this one.

The Arsenal defender will probably still serve a ban, albeit for improper conduct, and has until Thursday to answer that charge.

I think the criticism Mike Dean has received for his role in the game was entirely unfair.

Other than the Costa incidents – which were by no means straightforward – he handled a hot-tempered game well.

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BOLTON’S own Lee Mason makes his overdue return to Premier League duties this week – but what a place to do it!

I used to find Stoke City’s Britannia Stadium the most intimidating place to be a referee and it hasn’t lost any of that bite if recent events are anything to go by.

The home fans can be ferocious and so could Tony Pulis back in the day. Every time you saw you were on duty in the Potteries, you knew you’d have to pack your earplugs.

It hasn’t changed now that Mark Hughes is in charge. Mark is a very different character to Tony but he’s not beyond giving the ref’s an ear-bashing.

I think he had a point against Andre Marriner last weekend and I actually think Stoke have been quite hard done by on a couple of occasions this season.

Lee has been unfairly overlooked for top flight games for several weeks and will be hoping for one of those games where absolutely nothing happens.

He is bound to be nervous – I’ve been in that situation myself – and you just hope you get out of the other end unscathed and then live to fight another day.

You don’t want any key match decisions to make, so attention to draw on yourself. Lee just has to focus on being his natural self and making sure his recognition of offences, foul and non-foul, is bob on. Stuart Atwell’s return to Premier League duties definitely didn’t go according to plan, as he sent off Everton’s Kevin Mirallas.

As it happens I agreed with the decision to show the Belgium international the red card but I heard Gary Monk moaning that he was out of his depth at this level.

You don’t like to hear that – and I’d hope Stuart gets another chance to prove he can cut it among the elite referees.

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I’M excited to see whether Steve Walford can sprinkle some more of the Martin O’Neill magic on Wanderers now that he’s been appointed as Neil Lennon’s new number two.

I crossed paths with Steve quite a lot during my refereeing days at Leicester City, Aston Villa and the like, and he’s always come across as a very sound bloke.

Neil can benefit from his experience and maybe the odd bit of advice when things get tough. It’s an important relationship behind the scenes and assistants can often be a good sounding board for new ideas, and bad ones!

O’Neill was obviously a big mentor for Neil during his days with Celtic and Leicester but he was a fearsome fella to come up against on a matchday.

He was very smart. He’d always wait just far enough down the tunnel to make sure the television cameras didn’t catch him but once he had you in his sights he knew some words that would make a sailor blush!

I remember giving a penalty against him once and suffering some horrendous abuse for it. Afterwards, he sent his assistant John Robertson in to apoloogise.

I suppose that’s another job for the right hand man – I just hope Steve doesn’t have to get involved that much at Bolton this season.

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THE confusion certainly hasn’t cleared among Premier League officials when it comes to the directives on offside.

I’ve said several times this isn’t a new rule – it is simply the English top flight coming into line with the rest of the world. But my oh my, hasn’t it caused some problems.

I know for a fact that assistant referees have come out of meetings not knowing which way is up, and this is further evidence that the management and direction is sadly lacking at the top.

This weekend we saw Sunderland’s Jeremaine Lens have a perfectly good goal ruled out for offside when his side were 2-0 down at Bournemouth. At 2-1 they would have been in with a shout.

Then you see Southampton 1-0 up against Manchester United and Juan Mata play a crucial part in Anthony Martial’s equaliser despite clearly having come from an offside position.

You could see that referee Mark Clattenburg wanted to disallow that goal because of his body language but because he wasn’t in line, he couldn’t over-rule his assistant.

Anthony Taylor’s problems in the Liverpool v Norwich City game were all of his own making.

Norwich fans will claim that James Milner should have been shown a second yellow card for simulation early in that game – but Anthony knew he’d already boxed himself into a corner by issuing a caution for his first foul of the game.

It was the same for Younes Kaboul in the Sunderland game where Kevin Friend didn’t manage an early situation, which meant when he awarded a deserved second yellow card it equalled a red.