Punish the kickers ...not the V-flickers

THEY coped without him yesterday but Charlie Austin’s two-match suspension for a casual V-sign to taunting Manchester City supporters could, just could, have proved pivotal in Southampton’s season.

You never know. But even if Austin’s absence is not felt, his ban, in the chart of daft Football Association disciplinary verdicts, takes some beating.

Who an earth considers a dismissive two-fingered gesture abusive or insulting nowadays? It is almost quaint.

It is petulant, no more, no less. Austin was petulant, no more, no less.

Troy Deeney, for some honest and hardly inflammatory words, is also likely to be hammered by the FA.

Meanwhile, they cannot ‘re-referee’ games and punish players guilty of challenges that could end a fellow professional’s career.

Something is very seriously wrong with the system.

LOVE the fact Eddie Howe says he does not want to sell Callum Wilson “at any price”. But you suspect the subtext of Howe’s insistence is the suggestion that the £50million clubs are rumoured to be prepared to pay is nowhere near enough. If Howe and the Cherries have paid the best part of £20m for Dominic Solanke, they will need a bit more than £50m for Wilson (left).