Former LFW referee of the year Nigel Miller is in charge of our trip to Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday, but don't get too carried away he has not been in good form of late.

Sheffield Wednesday v Queens Park Rangers
Referee: Nigel Miller (Durham)
Assistants – Scregg (Merseyside) and Yates (Lancashire)
Fourth Official – Street (West Yorkshire)

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It’s been a week of handball decision in the penalty area. Our old mate Rob Styles gave one against Andy Griffin at Stoke in the League Cup last week and then didn’t award one for Fulham against Man City when Richard Dunne clearly handled the ball. This kind of inconsistency in refereeing is what drives everybody so crazy and it’s unforgivable when it is decisions made by different officials but for the same referee to give one thing on a Wednesday and a different thing altogether on the Saturday for the same offence in the same circumstances is mind blowing and just another example of why Mr Styles should not be in charge of anything other than the Hampshire District Darts and Dominos league – and even then he would need supervising.

John Terry seemed to get away with one at Bolton on Saturday and there were four or five handball shouts in the Everton and Villa match on Sunday as well. We seem to be adopting certain unwritten rules when it comes to incidents like this – nowhere in the rules does it say that you can’t give a handball decision if the ball is fired at the player from three yards away, nowhere does it say it’s not handball if the hands are down by the player’s side. The crucial word is deliberate and while you would have to be pretty stupid to actually deliberately handle the ball in the penalty area the interpretation of that is if a player has got his hands up or out he’s asking for trouble, if it’s fired at him from close range he can’t do much about it. For me Griffin, Dunne and Terry should all have had penalties given against them.

The man in charge of our game on Tuesday night is Nigel Miller from County Durham. He’s a former LFW referee of the year you may remember but his last two performances against us have been pretty poor and he turned down a QPR penalty at Bramall Lane for handball last season. He is in pretty poor form coming into this game, he was in charge of Barnsley v Burnley last week and showed a terrible lack of communication with his linesman when a Barnsley player deflected a shot into the net when standing three yards offside – the linesman knew he was offside but didn’t realise the ball had touched him, Miller saw the deflection but didn’t know he was offside. At no stage did either speak to each other, so bothered were they by restraining the livid Burnley players because, as we know, respecting the referee is far more important than actually getting the bloody decisions right this season.

So far this season he has shown 36 yellows (2.4 a match) and three reds in 15 games. His busiest afternoons have included six yellows and a red in a game between Oldham and Millwall in August and five yellows and a red at Morecambe v Exeter at the end of November. Last season he showed 67 (1.861 a match) yellows and eight reds in 36 matches and these aren’t bad averages at all when compared to some other referees.

In 2005/06 he refereed QPR’s 3-1 defeat at Wolves live on Sky and got the top mark of any referee that season, a nine good enough to put him top of the referee league. Ref: N Miller (Co Durham) – 9 The Wolves fans were going a bit mad with him but they do that with every ref! Miller could have been awarded a penalty but it was a fifty fifty call and in letting the game flow and keeping the cards in his pocket this guy is a good bet to top our referee league come May. One point deducted for an appalling effort at a moustache. LFW Wolves Match Report

Sadly since then he hasn’t been quite as good, he got a three for his diabolical showing in a 2-1 defeat at Hull City the following season, a game where Rangers were denied a penalty and had Lee Cook sent off for dissent – that saw him down near the bottom of the referee league that season and he didn’t improve much at Sheffield United last year where Rangers again lost 2-1 and he was awarded a five and a midtable position on that year’s table. That was the game where Rangers were denied a last minute penalty when Matthew Kilgallon appeared to fist a shot from Akos Buzsaky off the line. I still personally can’t make my mind up whether it was hand or head even now looking back at the replays so it’s hard to be too critical of Miller who had one split second to see and judge.

Ref: N Miller (Co Durham) 3 QPR Rivals Referee of the Year? If we'd given him a medal I'd like to choke him to death with it tonight. Shambolic display from start to finish. Gave some ridiculous decisions in QPR's favour for the first hour and then after failing to card Kanyuka for the worst challenge of the season so far on Forster set about awarding everything to Hull. Failed to award a blatant penalty when Cook was tripped and then sent him off for complaining. Allowed time wasting, stopped play for one head injury and played on for another, carded for something and then didn't even award a free kick for the same thing moments later. Lost it big time, a horrific performance. LFW Hull Match Report

Referee: Nigel Miller (Durham) 5 Very hard mark to give here because looking at the replays I don’t think it’s possible to decide definitively if Kilgallon handled the ball on the line or not. I’ve spoken to QPR fans who swear blind he did, and others who say he didn’t. The players seemed certain he did, although one thing I did notice on the highlights was the immediate reaction of the QPR fans directly behind the goal wasn’t to appeal for handball. Over the course of the game he seemed to get a number of decisions wrong, and the bald linesman going towards the away end was absolutely useless. Absolutely bloody useless. He looked at the referee before giving even the most simple of throw in decisions – you have a mind of your own you stupid little man use it. Wrongly disallowed Sharp’s goal in the first half but kept the flag down and allowed Hulse to race through on goal when he was clearly offside. Poor referee, terrible linesman, lethal combination. LFW Sheff Utd Match Report

His last Sheffield Wednesday match came right at the end of last season when they lost 2-1 at Blackpool and had full back Peter Gilbert sent off just after half time. He was also in charge of their 1-1 draw at West Brom last season where Steve Watson equalised deep into injury time live on Sky Sports.

Elsewhere Charlton’s predicament at the bottom of the table won’t be helped by the appearance of Trevor Kettle at their game with Coventry, Jarnail Singh has Reading v Blackpool.

Photo: Action Images

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