You certainly always like to point the finger at referees when things go wrong. At senior levels you are told to let the game breathe and are expected to wait and see and only signal advantage if it comes off. If the referee here blows immediately and the fouled player doesn't act like a complete tool and instead plays the ball to the 5 who is free on the left wing he rightly gets slated.
One person and one person only to blame here and that is the player kicking out. If this was the Dog and Duck vs the Frog and Parrot on a Sunday morning then I would agree and say just give the foul, but it wasn't. If a professional player being paid tens of thousands of pounds a week can't stop himself from kicking out he deserves to be sent off and shouldn't be protected by the referee killing the game, at least not unless there has been some previous.