One of the top five referees in the country Alan Wiley is the man in the middle for QPR's home game with Preston on Saturday.

Queens Park Rangers v Preston North End
Referee: Alan Wiley (Staffordshire)
Assistants – Turner (Derbyshire) and Sharp (Hertfordshire)
Fourth Official – Singh (London)

Respect
• noun - a feeling of admiration for someone because of their qualities or achievements.

So nice to see Stuart Attwell repaying the blind faith shown in him by the authorities with yet another crass decision last week. The checklist was more than complete at Stoke v Fulham as Danny Higginbothan punched a ball clear in his own penalty area – blatantly obvious decision, right in front of Attwell, wrong decision given, thoroughly cocksure and arrogant response to the incredulous reaction of the players. It’s the arrogance of the lad as much as his taste for the comically incompetent that annoys me most about him, how can you actually stand there with such conviction and say “head” over and over and over again when a player has just punched the ball clear right in front of you and every player on the pitch is going ballistic? Still this will be ignored just as all his other horrendous cock ups this year and he will be back on the list this weekend with no come back. He must have some dirt on somebody.

I noticed that when we had Rob Styles at Palace the other week he and both linesmen were together again at a Premiership match during the week. We have another top flight trio this Saturday against Preston with Alan Wiley in the middle and Phil Sharp and Graham Turner running the line. This looks like a pretty good appointment for us – Wiley is a reasonably sensible and consistent referee, certainly one of the better ones around.

So far this season Wiley has shown 47 yellows (2.937 a match) and two reds in 16 matches, all but four of which have been in the top flight. His biggest single haul was six yellows and a red in the Cardiff v Swansea League Cup match although in fairness that was pretty brutal and he did well to keep a lid on it. He showed six yellows in Everton v Man Utd and Liverpool v Hull last weekend as well. His only previous Championship appointment this season was a 1-0 win for Barnsley at local rivals Doncaster in October last season he showed 135 yellows (3.068 a match) and three reds in 44 games, the biggest haul was nine yellows in an Arsenal v Chelsea fixture.

Last year, as well as doing the Championship play off final, he took charge of one QPR match, a 2-1 home defeat by Crystal Palace before Christmas. Neil Warnock made a big deal before that match about Wiley being one of the better match officials and then promptly fell out with him and got sent to the stand during the contest. His rating of five was good enough for 21st position in the referee league.

Ref: Alan Wiley (Staffordshire) 5 Decent first half but some strange and poor decisions in the second. There was one particularly after half time that sticks in my mind where Rowan Vine was blocked from a through ball by Hudson who stuck his elbow right in the striker's face, Wiley waved play on and then within seconds gave a free kick to Palace for exactly the same thing at the other end. About as poor a game as I've seen him have. LFW Palace Match Report

Two seasons before that Wiley was in charge for Gar Waddock’s first game as QPR manager, a 1-0 victory at Loftus Road against eventually relegated Millwall who had a man sent off. Again he was awarded a five by this website and finished 17th in the referee league that year.

Ref: A Wiley (Staffordshire) 5 Had no choice with the sending off as it was as clear as daylight. Missed a lot though, plenty of pushing during the course of the game that he didn't see, he was assisted but a couple of lineman who forget their flag on a few occasions as well. Ainsworth can count himself lucky towards the end as it could have quite easily have been red for both players. LFW MIllwall Match Report

Prior to that Wiley was in charge of the memorable 3-3 draw at Barnsley during the promotion campaign awarding Paul Furlong a goal that didn’t cross the line in the first half, and three games at Loftus Road that finished in defeat, against Bury, a draw, against Bristol City, and a win against Norwich. Preston do not have particularly fond recent memories of him, they lost 2-1 to Morecambe in the League Cup last season with Wiley in charge.

Elsewhere this weekend Coventry and Ipswich have Rob Styles for their match and Mike Dean has been given the Birmingham v Reading match. Lower down Lee Probert has been punished for his gaff last week with a League One appointment, Leicester v Peterborough, and Trevor Kettle fresh from a dodgy penalty award at Reading last week has Darlington v Barnet.

Looking further ahead we have Paul Taylor for the Boxing Day game at Charlton, he’s the referee that sent off Martin Rowlands against West Brom on the final day of last season so that is not exactly terrific news. More on him next week.

Photo: Action Images

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