Ref error and Sunderland get away with it

And they have. We've had the challenge on Stephen Ireland at Stoke and the farcical red card affair at Man United when Roger East clearly sent off the wrong player but wasn't honest enough to admit it some made something up.

He sent off Wes Brown; he should have sent off John O'Shea. Because of East's after match nonsense it made it virtually impossible for any action to be taken against O'Shea and today, after an appeal, Brown has seen his red card rightfully rescinded.

The Professional Game Match Officials Board, led by Mike Riley, might be better served in encouraging their referees to be honest rather than making statements helping them to cover their tracks.

The referee who came in for the stick at Stoke was Neil Swarbrick. Mark Hughes said after the game: "If there is a disappointment today then it is with the match officials because they missed one of the worst challenges I have seen on Stephen in the first half.

"He came in at half time, pulled down his sock, and I think everybody was shocked by the gash that he has down the back of his calf. It's a horrendous wound to be perfectly honest and he has had to have 12 or 15 stitches to patch it back up again.

"It was a scandalous challenge, and for the linesman, who was 10-yards away, and the referee not to see it is unacceptable really."

The finger was pointing at Maynor Figueroa but he needn't worry about being public enemy number one for a week because Hughes doesn't carry the same clout as Mourinho. He won't be able to railroad himself onto Sky's football programmes and won't be given the same platform.

I don't often agree with Hughes to be honest but he's right on this one.

I thought we saw the good and the bad of Ruud Gullit on Saturday evening. His suggestion that we should have had a penalty but didn't get it because Sam Vokes wasn't prepared to go down is a concerning thing to hear. The fact that he wouldn't let Alan Shearer get a word in and talked over him was brilliant. Maybe Gullit, like most of us, realises that his positive contributions to Match of the Day are virtually zero.

From our point of view, there's a real concern now that both Palace and West Brom have all but pulled themselves away from relegation worries. Both are on 30 points now which is eight points clear of the drop zone.

Thankfully, all of Hull, Sunderland and Aston Villa lost so the defeat hasn't cost us too much, but we've still got these next few fixtures to contend with and I'm a bit concerned with the next one having seen the way Liverpool played yesterday.

All the weekend results are below along with the next fixtures, the last midweek fixtures of the season. There's also a list of the leading goalscorers and each club's red and yellow card count.