OF ALL the major decisions Stuart Attwell had to make last weekend, he got five or six of them totally wrong.

As refereeing performances go, it was one of the worst I have ever witnessed.

He couldn't get a thing right and his influence on the outcome of the game at Pride Park was bigger than anyone else's on the pitch.

But I feel sorry for him. I am not about to start tearing into him or insisting he should never referee again.

Instead, I am going to point the finger of blame at somebody else – the people who put him in charge of the game in the first place, the Professional Game Match Officials Board. I honestly don't know what they were thinking.

I can picture the process now: 'So lads, we've got a ref who is under fire because he allowed a goal to stand when the ball was three feet wide of the post – he has found himself in the spotlight a little bit.

'What match shall we put him in charge of for his second game back? Now we need something easy just to ease him back into things a little bit . . . How about the East Midlands derby?'

I mean, it's like booking Russell Brand as the speaker for the Carlton WI's Christmas luncheon.

But, as if that decision was not bad enough, they are now throwing Attwell out of the frying pan into the fire. Rather than allowing him to get his confidence back by handing him a few lower division matches, they are doing quite the opposite.

He is going to be included in the Premiership referee's list and is going to be recommended as our FIFA representative.

In other words, having failed to deal with the pressure of a local derby, they are now asking him to deal with the pressure of matches on the international stage.

That's logical, isn't it?

At 25, I am sure Attwell has plenty of potential.

I am sure he is capable of far more than he demonstrated last Sunday.

But let me point out one thing.

When Sir Alex Ferguson has a talented young player coming through the ranks, he nurtures them slowly. He gives them a taste of the action, then he gives them a rest.

He makes sure they are coping with the progression to being a first-team regular. He might even send them out on loan to play some lower division football.

What he doesn't do is expect them to go straight in and flourish in the Champions League semi-final.

Why should we expect our referees to be able to cope any differently?