Miller defended an article on the club’s official website, which accused Nicholls of “cheating” supporters after he sent off Aberdeen pair Maurice Ross and Chris Maguire during their late 2-0 Clydesdale bank Premier League defeat by Hibernian on Saturday.

The unattributed article, entitled: ‘Is common sense too much to hope for?”, observed that Nicholls, who also issued a total of eight yellow cards, was “hell bent” on sending someone off.

Miller yesterday argued that Scottish football needed its authorities to co-operate with the coaches who were striving to improve the entertainment value.

“It’s a club point of view,” Miller told RedTV. “We have got to take a stance, particularly for our fans, and assure them we want to see the game in Scotland and at Aberdeen played in a certain way. We are certainly not a physical team.”

Miller added: “We’re concerned about the game in general. It’s taking a lot of stick about the standard.

“We’re encouraging the fans to travel, we had nearly 2000 at Easter Road, and when you’re getting players sent off then it spoils the entertainment.

“We’re trying to get the profile of the game up and convince fans that we’re trying to play football.

“A lot of our young managers deserve credit for the way they are trying to play the game. The game in Scotland is not a dirty one. I don’t want to see it being tarnished by people who think it’s physical, because Saturday’s game wasn’t physical. I don’t think any of the challenges on Saturday were malicious.”

Miller claimed the club were sparking a debate necessary to encourage the Scottish Football Association to give more leeway to referees.

“The feeling after the game was that the referee seemed to be booking players very early in the game, and not using a little bit of common sense,” the former Scotland captain said. “That’s what we’re asking for, maybe having a word in a player’s ear and giving them a warning before the booking. The referee on Saturday booked five in the first half. We got two players sent off and it could quite easily have been the other way. Innocuous fouls in the second half resulted in red cards.”

The former Aberdeen captain and manager added: “The SFA are quite keen to encourage dialogue but we didn’t get dialogue from the referee.

“Some of my players said they were asking questions but weren’t getting answers from the referee. I don’t like to hark back to the old days, but I’m going to anyway – you had referees with a bit of character and they were given that leeway and used to regularly talk to the players.

“I think you get a bit of respect between players and referees if you encourage that. Maybe we are just being too authoritative in the direction to referees.”

Hugh Dallas, the SFA’s head of referee development, refused to respond to the comments or discuss the performance of Nicholls, whose display in St Mirren’s draw with St Johnstone in September prompted the Paisley side’s manager, Gus MacPherson, to 
complain about the appointment of “novice” referees.

But Dallas said: “The only thing I would like to say is that, if Aberdeen have got any issues regarding refereeing then then what they should do is contact the refereeing department. We have had no contact whatsoever.”

Meanwhile, the Hibernian defender, Ian Murray, has defended his tackle on Fyvie after criticism from the Aberdeen manager, Mark McGhee.

Fyvie, 16, has been ruled out for up to six weeks with ankle ligament damage after being injured in Murray’s sliding challenge at Easter Road.

Murray played the ball in a challenge that took place immediately in front of an assistant referee, who flagged for a throw-in.

However, McGhee claimed Murray could have done more to avoid injuring the teenager.

Murray, 28, said: “I have to say I am a little disappointed by the reaction. I’m a bit confused by what Mark McGhee said – ‘the tackle was legitimate but was over-robust’. What does that mean if you win the ball?

“I’ve gone in hard to get the ball and I think the fans, the gaffer and myself would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gone in wholeheartedly.”

Murray added: “I looked at it again on the computer from behind, probably the best angle, you can see I clearly took the ball.

“The linesman was standing right in front of it, he had a perfect view and there wasn’t anything to suggest it was a bad tackle.

“There was no-one more surprised than me to see him lying there. To me it seemed as if he tried to jump over me and then landed awkwardly. If someone tackled me like that I would be absolutely fine about it, no problem.”