Phil Joslin is the referee for our trip to Norwich on Saturday, Rangers will be hoping for no repeat of the Cardiff game he refereed earlier this season.

Norwich City v Queens Park Rangers
Referee – Phil Joslin (Nottingham)
Assistants – Coote (Nottingham) and Porter (Lincolnshire)
Fourth Official – Mackrell (Hampshire)

One thing I’ve noticed coming into the game more and more this season is the old referees trick when awarding a dodgy corner. You see it so often - a corner is awarded when it probably should have been a goal kick or a foul to the defending team, the players crowd round the referee and protest but he points for a corner and they all get back in their positions. The ball is then delivered in and the referee awards the defending team a free kick for some push or other he claims to have seen in the goal mouth. Everybody’s happy, the defending team have their free kick after all and the attacking team can’t really moan because it wasn’t a corner in the first place and chances are there was a push somewhere in the box anyway because there always is.

It annoys me though because I know what the referee is doing and it’s not right. If you give a dodgy penalty to a team you don’t then rule the subsequent goal out because of some issue in the run up do you? Maybe it isn’t happening more and more, maybe I’m just noticing it more. I’m bringing it up because the worst example of it so far took place in the Newcastle Sunderland game last week where Mike Dean awarded Newcastle a corner, the Sunderland players protested and he immediately gave them a free kick once it had been taken. The replays showed that, for once, there was no contact whatsoever in the penalty area and a free kick should never have been awarded. The commentators on Sky said as much but never once mentioned that Dean may have been influenced by the reaction of the Sunderland players to the award of the corner in the first place. Sometimes I wonder what the point of a co-commentator is.

Anyway the man awarding the corners and free kicks at Carrow Road this weekend is Phil Joslin. Now his last QPR game was our 2-0 defeat at home to Cardiff in August but the last time many of you will have seen him was the Paint Trophy final last month between Grimsby and MK Dons. Both teams got a penalty in that match, and both were fouls, but the linesman flagged an MK Dons player offside before the award of their spot kick and Joslin failed to go and communicate with the linesman, who presumably would have told him to award a Grimsby free kick, before awarding the spot kick. Still he’s normally a very decent referee, and one with whom QPR have an excellent record with prior to this season.

This season, despite the poor performance and defeat, Joslin got a decent mark of eight for his performance in our home game with Cardiff - a mark good enough for joint first position on the referee league.

Referee - Phil Joslin 8 - Usual steady performance from Joslin, a referee I'm a big fan of. Cards kept in his pocket for the most part, allowed the game to flow, stayed out of the way. Little bit harsh on Nygaard when he came on I felt but otherwise excellent. LFW Cardiff Match Report

He was in charge of a fixture between the same two clubs the season before, this time at Cardiff where he waved away two or three good looking penalty claims from the hosts and then watched on as Ray Jones bagged a last minute winner for the Super Hoops. His rating of six good enough for joint tenth on last season’s referee league.

Referee: P J Joslin 6 - Allowed the game to flow, only produced cards when absolutely necessary although it remains unclear to me why Parry was carded. The two penalty decisions are key of course - for me the first one with Stewart on Chopra should have been an indirect free kick. The second I'm still not sure about, at normal speed my first reaction was 'penalty' so chances are the Cardiff fans will be unhappy. LFW Cardiff Match Report

Joslin was in charge of a 1-1 draw with Gillingham at Loftus Road towards the end of our first season in the Championship, two yellow cards were shown but what looked like a blatant handball on the line by Chris Hope was missed. Back in our League One days Joslin was a fairly regular fixture at QPR matches, normally to our benefit.

In our promotion season he took charge of a 1-1 draw at home to Peterborough live on Sky, a 2-1 victory against Brighton, and a 2-0 League Cup win at Sheff Utd. The season before that he was the man in the middle as we beat Blackpool 2-1 at Loftus Road. His first QPR game did end in a defeat for us though, 2-1 against Tranmere at Loftus Road in 2001. Still he’s a referee I like and normally have a lot of time for so hopefully that will continue on Saturday.

So far this season he has shown 109 yellows (3.2 a game) and six reds in 34 matches, his biggest haul from one match is six yellows and one red in a meeting between Port Vale and Walsall on Boxing Day. Last season he showed 134 yellows (3.83 a game) and six reds in 35 games. Those are pretty high averages but it’s nearly three years since he showed more than six yellow cards in a match, in stark contrast to Mr Kettle from last week who shows his wife a yellow card in the beans aren’t hot enough with his breakfast and booked another seven at Loftus Road against Charlton. Egotistical maniac.

Kettle is back down at his true level this Saturday, taking charge of Macclesfield v Chesterfield. Elsewhere this weekend Chris Foy is down from the Premiership for the relegation six pointer between Leicester and Sheff Wed, Mark Halsey is in the Championship for the second time this week for Sheff Utd v Bristol City. Our old favourite Andy Hall has Burnley v Cardiff. Finally I could barely stifle a laugh when I saw Rob Styles listed as the official for Shrewsbury Town v Chester City in League Two. Expect his bruised ego to result in a glut of cards there.

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