SAM Allardyce insists ‘the game has never been cleaner’ but warns attempts to take tackling out of football would only destroy the Premier League.

Ahead of Fulham’s visit to Ewood Park tomorrow, the Blackburn Rovers boss was determined to defend the physical nature of England’s top flight but claimed accusations of it being ‘dirty’ are well wide of the mark.

The Premier League’s ‘fair play’ reputation has taken another battering this week after Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger again called for more protection for his players, and Wolves were criticised for their robust approach against Fulham last weekend – a game that saw Bobby Zamora break his leg.

But Allardyce has hit back at the moaners and believes any more efforts to reduce the contact in the game would be a huge turn-off for the very people who currently love it.

He said: “We’ve tried our best to take away tackling for the last five or six years. We’ve tried our best to stop the contact side of it.

"You can speak to the referees at the moment and you can actually be quite bemused by saying a good tackle can be deemed as over-ferocious.

“I don’t know how you judge that but that’s what they’re saying.

"So if you make a good, clean tackle first and take the man, if they deem it to be too ferocious, they can still give a foul and book you which is quite bizarre to me because a good tackle is a good tackle.

“Collisions happen so much faster, which result in terms of how it looks much worse than it actually is.

"You get two players running at the speeds they run at now means the collision side has increased dramatically.

“When they come together and collide the force of that is going to create something that looks a lot worse, then we slow it all down and that makes it look worse.

"Then we get this thing about it’s a dirty game. It’s never been cleaner than it is now.”

While Allardyce has dismissed Wenger’s complaints as just another attempt to influence referees into making his side ‘untouchable’, he does fear the constant ‘whinging’ could ultimately spark the end of the game as we know it.

“Players have never played as good as they play now, both in terms of how they go about the game and promoting the game and making the referee’s job easier,” said Allardyce.

“I’m the complete opposite to whatever everybody says that players influence the referees. They don’t influence them half as much as they did in my time. Not even a quarter.

“The players promote the game in the right way and very often make the referee’s job pretty easy. They don’t have a lot to do.

"All we’re faced with sometimes is a bit of simulation – I’d sooner have a bit of simulation than people trying to break each other’s legs that used to happen in my day.”

Rovers’ own battling point against Manchester City last weekend was a prime example of what a combination of determination, desire and organisation can achieve - attributes Allardyce insists are crucial for the future of the league.

Skipper Chris Samba epitomised Rovers’ display with a last-gasp goal-line block and Allardyce admits without moments like that he would be ready to give up the game.

Allardyce said: “Take tackling out of the game it would make it a lot poorer – we’d stop watching it wouldn’t we?

"I’d pack up and go home anyway because we already in our coaching techniques have stopped practising the art of tackling.

"We say to the players, ‘Stay on your feet. Don’t go to ground'.

“Chris Samba almost enjoyed that block last weekend as much as scoring a goal. Everyone in the world of football who watches it doesn’t have to be a professional to know that’s pure desire and commitment.

“The Premier League’s about quality, talent and individual skills but without the desire and commitment, you can’t survive in the league.

“If you wanted to stop physical commitment in the game then you wouldn’t have challenges like the one Chris Samba did in the last minute against Manchester City.

“If you stop that you will stop the game being what it is today.

"Chrissy put his life on the line with that fantastic block to put the ball over the bar and it is moments like this that show why the Premier League is the most entertaining league in the world and why everyone wants to watch it.

“We have made the Barclays Premier League so exciting no wonder everyone wants to watch it.

"What a lift to what we experienced in the World Cup. Then there were so many boring games, whereas here everyone is on the edge of their seats.”