Bakes, you bring up good points, but the first thing that strikes me, which some of the other posters alluded to is the glaring inconsistency.
Besides for crying out loud... the larger issue is that such judgements are left to the discretion of the official. What one may card for the other will verbally admonish. Inconsistent... yes. Fixable... no.
I think it is fixable.
Referees are asked to apply the letter of the law when it comes to certain fouls.
There is no discretion when it comes to studs up, elbows, professional fouls, fouls by the last defender, etc. Most of those fouls are demanded by the FA to be met with punishment by cards. Lampard was yellow carded after Saturday's incident because he argued with Riley, which stemming from the RESPECT campaign, is a no no by players to question to referees decision - so we can effectively throw discretion out the window.
It's easy to argue that no-one cares about Man City - Stoke, hence there is no outcry over the result, but we could also say that since justice was meted out to both transgressors, that the public is happy that fairness was administered, albeit long after the game was called.
For one, I wouldn't make the arguement that the goals resulted in the sending off. To me, it's as silly as trying to argue that if someone had hustled for a ball, instead of letting it go out of play that it would have altered the result of the game. I think even the most ardent Chelsea fans would be hard pressed to admit that they knew that 11 men on the field would 100% change the outcome of the game - anything else would be delusional.
Tracing back to the Gerrard-Bosingwa incident: I know that Gerrard has scored some outrageous goals, but to say that Gerrard was ostensibly shooting at goal from deep within the Liverpool half of the field with his aim towards the sidelines, more than towards the goal - that shot would need to some serious Brasilian flair and swerve. Gerrard kicked the ball into Bosingwa, and that was his intention. We can chalk it up to insanity, like Bosingwa's incident with Benayoun.
Look back to the last Gold Cup when TT was playing their last game of the first round - a TT defender was sent off for flaying his arm, that accidentaly caught the forward. While the forward played it up - the referee did was what correct after consulting with his linesman.
Fast forward to the game versus Guatemala in Guatemala. Wildman Cyd fly in with a typical wildman tackle and get sent packing. You could say that Cyd was upset by all the play acting and cynical fouls that Guat was doing leading up to that tackle, but nothing still excuses him, or the referee from making that decision.
I think that discretion does play a part in refereeing decisions - we're all human afterwards. However, discretion needs to be used in less subjective aspects of the game, such as determining how much added injury time is required, or should play be halted if a player is laying injured on the field, or if a ball was inadvertantly handled. But in contentious and potentially game changing incidents that puts one team at a distinct advantage over the other: sending off, penalties, etc. - there needs to less discretion and more consistency.
