I have concerns when I see some referees allocated to Burnley games, serious concerns with some others, and then there are the few that worry you to death. Tonight's referee, the 50-year-old retired police officer and now bird breeder Nigel Miller is most definitely one of those in that last category.
A year ago, ahead of his last Burnley game, I said he was a referee who seriously worried me. A day later he sent off Leon Cort in a 4-0 home defeat against Reading so I suppose, for a lot of Burnley fans, that's a plus, but the first yellow card for Cort that day saw him award a ridiculous penalty for an incident OUTSIDE the box. That penalty set Reading on the victory road.
That was nothing compared to the televised defeat at Barnsley three years ago last week when he took it upon himself to hand the points to Barnsley with a series of baffling decisions including a goal that was handball, offside and a foul all in one.
The one thing for him is that he isn't over fussy in terms of the cards and this season, in 17 games, there have been 52 yellow cards and just a couple of red cards.
Of the yellow cards, 21 of them have gone to home team players and 51 to away team players. Both red cards have come in League One games with Exeter's Steve Tully sent off at Preston in a 1-0 defeat (during the period in the season when Preston were actually winning games) and Scunthorpe's Bobby Grant in their 1-1 home draw against Colchester.
His most recent game was Crewe's 2-1 win in League Two at Morecambe a week last Saturday. There was just the one yellow card in that game to Crewe's Lee Bell.
With three qualifying games he is currently down in 50th place in RATE THE REF with a rating of just 41.62 out of 100.
Source: FOOTYMAD
