I HAVE the greatest respect for the job David Moyes has done and continues to do at Everton and the greatest sympathy for him over the Jack Rodwell sending off affair.

But the Goodison boss is way off beam when he claims the standard of refereeing is currently the biggest threat to the image of the Premier League.

I am no apologist for the men in the middle – especially not when the likes of Martin Atkinson can see a red-card offence where there isn’t even a foul – as he did when he sent off Rodwell and completely ruined the Merseyside derby.

But I reckon Moyes is deluding himself if he genuinely believes players and managers are improving the game’s image while referees are undermining it. He said: “The image of the game is being enhanced by the footballers in this country and by the levels of the managers.

“I am not convinced that it is being enhanced by the performance of the match officials at this present time.”

He clearly isn’t aware that the public perception of the average Premier League footballer is of an obscenely overpaid, pampered and ungrateful mercenary who has lost all sense of reality. And if he believes managers are paragons of virtue who are doing their bit in support of the Premier League’s drive for more respect, then I must confess I haven’t noticed.

Are we really to believe that with the Carlos Tevez affair still rumbling on, the Football Association investigating Manchester United defender Patrice Evra’s claim that he was subjected to racist taunts by Liverpool striker Luis Suarez during Saturday’s heavyweight clash at Anfield and Wayne Rooney talking of appealing the three-match suspension imposed by UEFA for kicking an opponent in England’s Euro qualifier in Montenegro, that our leading players are conducting themselves with dignity?

Mind you, how can we expect players and managers to conduct themselves with dignity when you’ve got greedy foreign owners unashamedly making overtures about scrapping relegation and making the Premiership a closed shop while the likes of Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre greedily suggests the so-called “elite” clubs be allowed to negotiate their own overseas broadcasting deals?

Moyes might be offside in his overview of who is hot and who is not as far as football’s image is concerned, but that doesn’t mean Martin Atkinson is off the hook.

He was only person at Goodison the other week who thought Rodwell’s challenge deserved a red card and, despite the disciplinary panel confirming what we all saw for ourselves on television, he has not acknowledged he dropped a clanger let alone contacted Moyes to offer either sympathy or explanation.