A man who prides himself on playing as many games as possible, Southern's season was severely disrupted when he was shown a red card and banned for three games.

The midfielder saw red for the first time in his career at Macclesfield in the Carling Cup - when he was dismissed for 'intent' after leaning his head towards an opponent.

Southern freely admits he was in the wrong and has apologised to manager Simon Grayson and his team-mates.

But what winds him up is that his suspension for violent conduct was exactly the same as Newcastle's Danny Guthrie received for breaking the leg of Hull's Craig Fagan with a deliberate and reckless tackle.

"It is unbelievable really when you think about it and I have been saying this to my family for the last few weeks," said the 27-year-old.
"The FA is just an absolute joke.

"How they can give me a three game ban for hardly touching a player, for intent, and he (Guthrie) breaks a fellow professional's leg and he gets the same ban as me?

"It's shows just what you're up against really.

"I've learnt my lesson and learned form my mistakes and it won't be happening again.

"It was disappointing at the time but I kept myself fit and now I'm back in the team and things are going along quite nicely.

"We are undefeated in the last four so there are a lot of positives to take into the games coming up after the international break so we are going along all right."

What Southern was most disappointed about was picking up a first red card of a career that has seen him make 211 appearances in a Tangerine shirt - the Seasiders second longest serving player behind Danny Coid.

One red card in all that time, especially for a hard-tackling central midfielder, isn't a bad record.

"No it's not," added Southern. "And that was the disappointing thing because I've made tackles over the past 10 years where they have been slightly late and I've not been given bookings or red cards.

"I'm not hiding from the fact that I'm responsible for my actions and that it was out of character and out of order.

"I apologised to the lads and the gaffer. It wasn't like me.

"But when you see other things that go unpunished week in, week out in the Premier League and the divisions below it is unbelievable.

"But you can only do what you can do for yourself. I got punished and I took it on the chin.

"I am back in the team now and it is all forgotten about."

Do you agree with Keith, is the FA's system fair? Leave your comments below.