REFEREES are coming in for quite a lot of criticism from one angle or another at the moment.

The way the game is going, with it becoming faster and faster, I think it is important we look at things carefully rather than making snap judgements and without trying to change too much.

I know in the heat of the moment it is easy for a manager, or a player, or a coach, to get wound up and upset by the decisions that are made during the game.

Graeme Souness made the point after his side's 1-0 defeat by Middlesbrough that at 4.45pm every Saturday all you hear is people criticising referees for the decisions they've made.

But rather than having this thrown at the referees all the time, I think in the light of that it is important we look at ways of improving or making their jobs easier.

They are just human beings like everybody else and they are going to make mistakes.

It is easy for people to talk about using more technology, and this can help to a certain extent, but mistakes will be made and I'd rather look at things in the cold light of day and say how can we help the officials.

One of the ways could be to improve the role of the assistant referees, or the linesmen as I still call them. Why they are called assistant referees I will never know.

One of the most contentious rules in the game is the offside rule and again because of the pace of the game, linesmen are making the wrong decisions as they are either not up with play or they are watching the ball which is being delivered forward.

From our point of view at York City, in recent games - in Rochdale away and Halifax away - we've had decisions go against us which have cost goals and ultimately points. Two offside decisions were missed by a linesman and both led to goals.

Both incidents were virtually identical because the player in the offside position who received the ball was probably two or three yards away from the linesman on that side of the field.

Those are the decisions a linesman doesn't see because everything is so close to him. When the ball is on that side of the field, he is having to look at the line to make sure the ball doesn't go out of play, watch the ball be delivered and then make a decision when the ball has got there. There is just so much going on so close for them to see it all.

What I would like to see looked at is the possibility of four linesmen, one for each quarter of the pitch.

This would mean that if the linesman on the near side where the play is, is not able to see the offside as he is wrapped up in what is going on around him, then the linesman on the far side has a far greater vision to see it.

From the referee's point of view, he only has to see one flag go up. If they both go up, fine. If one goes up, it is offside.

In the present circumstances, sometimes the flag doesn't go up because the linesman hasn't seen, but this way should see the other linesman give it.

If you have four linesmen around the pitch it means the referee only has to run up and down the centre of the pitch most of the time as opposed to going across the diagonals to where there are no linesmen.

You think about all sorts of different things and I don't think the way forward is the way everybody seems to be slamming the officials at every given opportunity.

Let's help them and make it easier for them to make the right decisions.

Updated: 10:41 Thursday, February 21, 2002