Dundee United boss Craig Levein claims Scottish football is going soft after Roy O'Donovan's straight red card in the 0-0 draw at Falkirk. Levein was frustrated at the decision, feeling his forward had made an aggressive, fair tackle but the type of challenge that is now getting punished in the modern game.

Levein said: "Under the circumstances, I thought we at least deserved a point.

"I'm just really disappointed we were down to 10 men. The way the game's going, we'll be playing with slippers on shortly and there will be no tackling whatsoever.

"As a former defender that played when you were allowed to tackle, I mean there is an art to it.

"As long as you tackle the ball, for me there is no way anybody should be sent off for what happened today, no way.

"There was nobody hurt in that situation today because Roy tackled the ball.

"He tried to play it off the defender and get us a throw-in in the last third of the park, which is perfectly reasonable.

"But it's just the way the game is going. It's sad really because, for me, the game is about competitive football and that was competitive but it seems that we're trying to stamp that out for some reason."

"My complaint is that that tackle is a perfectly good tackle, but in today's game more and more you see what happened today.

"Iain Brines and his assistant saw a player going in aggressively to win the ball.

"He got the ball, 100% got the ball, didn't catch the player at all. I don't understand how that can be a sending off.

"That wasn't a dangerous tackle, but nowadays if you tackle aggressively it seems to be that they can't wait to get a card out."