MARK Halsey seems to have been hung out to dry in this ridiculous Callum McManaman and Massadio Haidara affair.

He has been the one who has to sit there taking all the flak this week without being able to say a word on the subject, but I’m sticking up for him this time.

We have all seen 20 replays, watched McManaman’s tackle from every possible angle, and we all agreed it was a bad one. Halsey got a split-second viewing of the incident from a difficult angle in my opinion, and got no help whatsoever from his linesmen.

He has to be 100 per cent certain to bring out a red. But he was looking from behind Haidara – the player who got hurt – and I don’t think he got the best view.

Whatever a ref decides in these cases, they never emerge with any credit. It is the most thankless job I can think of.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope the lad is okay and that he doesn’t miss the rest of the season. No-one wants to see bad tackles but we’ve got to accept that these things happen.

Only McManaman will know if there was any intent. Otherwise it’s a tackle – and these days people make big issues out of tackles because no-one is allowed to challenge for the ball any more.

The way people have been carrying on this week, you’d think he had let a grenade off on the pitch.

I can understand the frustration over the FA’s disciplinary committee, though, because it isn’t always easy to understand what decisions they are willing to go over with videos, and which ones they want to leave alone.

Look at the Brighton lad (Ashley Barnes) against us the other day. I have watched that incident a dozen times on replays and I still can’t quite make my mind up what he has done wrong.

In that case it came down to the word of the referee against the word of the player, and yet he gets seven games. Video evidence didn’t help at all there.

We can’t go on blowing every incident out of proportion and having things splattered all over the back pages because mistakes will happen and this is a human game.

Hopefully there is no serious damage caused but I think it’s time everyone moved on now.

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WE have got a week left until the close of the loan window and at this stage of the season, Dougie Freedman just wants to cover all his bases.

You are looking for something a little bit different – maybe just to spice things up in your squad.

He has been linked with players like Scott Sinclair and Raheem Sterling, who would both definitely be exciting and have people on the edge of their seats, but I don’t think either addresses the main gap we have at the moment.

We still lack a regular goalscorer. Simple as that.

The fact that Craig Dawson, pictured, has been magnificent since he came in has rather masked over a few things. He’s scored goals, played well, but our strikers just haven’t been hitting the target regularly.

Sinclair and Sterling will create but are they prolific enough?

Landing someone who can get you goals is a near-impossible task at this time of year. Clubs will be very reluctant to let those players go, so those who you can get your hands on are usually the unproven ones. They are a bit of a gamble but it might just take something from left field to give us that spark.

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I’M sure that Stuart Holden is absolutely itching to get going, and something tells me his time will be sooner rather than later.

You’d tend to think that at this stage of the season Dougie Freedman would be making most of his changes in the engine room, where the majority of the work is getting done.

He wants to keep players fresh with squad rotation, and Stu, pictured, must be dying for it to finally be his turn.

I’m sure the fact he was out for so long and has only had snippets of action since he came back has made that feeling even worse.

But I’m convinced his time will come and maybe it’s not a bad thing to have him pulling on the chain so hard when we are looking for an influential figure in the last eight games of the campaign.

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DEFEAT at Ipswich Town was a blow but I don’t think it’s a fatal one to our play-off chances.

Normally you’d say that international breaks are difficult for coaches because they can break up momentum, and normally your most influential players are away representing their country, but this one has come at a good time, in my eyes.

There is pressure going into every game at the moment. Each one has a knock-on effect elsewhere.

You look at the top end of the table now and Forest have got themselves on a great run, Brighton got a massive win against Palace, and this was our weekend to lose some ground.

But it could all change next weekend. There’s no use writing the team off one week and then jumping back on the bandwagon when we get a win.

We’ve been on a great run. We can get that traction again and that might just be enough to see us over the line.

Maybe a few days away from the routine of matchdays will give us a chance to rekindle a bit of fire and really have a good go when we get to Charlton.

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SHOULD anything surprise us any more when it comes to Blackburn?

I could only laugh when I heard that Michael Appleton had been sacked after 67 days in charge – it really is hard to fathom just what is happening down the road.

Who exactly is calling the shots? Nobody seems to be owning up to anything or being held accountable for some terrible decisions.

It makes you thankful that our club is a bit more stable.

Yes, there was a bit of upheaval earlier in the season when we made a managerial change of our own but things have settled now and that is simply because everyone knows their jobs.

People criticise sometimes, but the grass isn’t always greener. Blackburn are living proof of that.

We have an ownership that understands the English game, how the club works and how the people within the club work.

When you bring in foreign ownership, that all-too-often isn’t the case.

I feel for Blackburn fans because, deep down, it is a great club.

People are disillusioned at the moment and it’s not a surprise to me that the gates are well down at Ewood Park.

The Venkys don’t seem to have grasped that and seem to be listening to the wrong people when they are making the big decisions.

It will still be an attractive job for someone, though. Whatever you say about the owners, they have backed managers with money and there are some very good players in the squad.

You do wonder how long the next guy will be given, though.

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WE had a great night raising money for the Parky Trust last weekend, banking an incredible £17,000 for my old team-mate, Gary Parkinson.

As I said last week, Gary and his family need a lot of help and it’s great to see people rallying round.

A lot of credit goes to Lisa Forshaw, who helped organise the event in Westhoughton, because everyone involved had a fantastic time.