Leeds manager Simon Grayson has accused referees of being “trigger happy”.

Grayson’s players have collected 11 bookings from their last two matches and his club were automatically fined £2,000 for six yellow cards in the drawn FA Cup fourth-round tie at Tottenham.

He believes referees are determined to outlaw physical challenges from the game.

“When you are trying to compete and make tackles, you do run the risk of picking up bookings, but some of those we got at Tottenham were an absolute disgrace,” said Grayson.

“They didn’t even warrant free-kicks, never mind yellow cards, so I just think referees have been trigger happy.

“I am not going to tell my players to pull out of tackles – in fact, I want them to make more challenges than they already do.

“I want them to be competitive and I don’t think they’ve been that in some games, yet we still keep being done on the yellow cards scenario.”

Grayson added: “The referees were very inconsistent in our games against Tottenham and Swindon. They are certainly trying to take the physical side out of the game.

“You only need to go back five or ten years and players were making tackles and surviving a lot longer without suspensions.

“These players today are getting far more bookings than they ever did and unjustifiably so at times.”

Meanwhile, Leeds’ FA Cup fifth-round tie at Bolton, if they win their replay against Tottenham, will be played on Sunday, February 14 (1.30pm) and will be televised live by ITV 1.