Arsenal midfielder Alex Hleb has slammed the refereeing in the Premiership.

He said: "The Premier League is a very tough competition. Yes, the game is fast and beautiful, but there are also quite a lot of bad tackles and crudeness, and recently also monstrous refereeing mistakes.

"Chelsea scored a goal against us from an obvious offside position but the referee allowed it. And we scored a goal which was very important for us but it was disallowed for a non-existent offside.'

Hleb has been unimpressed by the ferocity in the English game and the punishment meted out to players guilty of lunges, like the one by Birmingham's Martin Taylor which left Eduardo with a double compound leg fracture.

"There are quite a lot of bone-breaking players here,' claimed Hleb. 'English referees are very liberal to them. They do it because they know there will be no real punishment. Eduardo is out for a year, maybe more. His future is under a question mark.

"The guy who did it was only disqualified for three games. Is it an adequate punishment?"