Rob Styles - Whats His Game?

Rob Styles successfully made sure he was centre of attention today as he issued enough cards and dodgy decisions to change the game and create another episode of The Rob Styles Show. The card-happy referee has already been axed from a Premier League fixture once this season for issuing 2 contentious penalties in the space of 3 weeks back in October 2008, one of those also being against Newcastle.

At the time he was demoted to 4^th official for the impending Liverpool, Chelsea game. Understandably Newcastle manager Joe Kinnear at the time was extremely angry and no doubt he will have something to say about today's "interesting" decisions as well.

Whilst Styles is half way down the "Premier League Referee's Card Table," when taking into consideration other fixture's, his record for the 2008/2009 season spans 19 matches during which he has issued, 60 yellow cards and 4 reds. Six of those bookings came today in the match between Blackburn and Newcastle, with the red card being a result of a second yellow against Nicky Butt. This is the highest number of cards he has issued this season in one game, but is equalled by his performance during the Stoke v Arsenal game in November when he also booked six players and sent one off.

Toon fans are not the only ones appalled by some of his refereeing decisions this season as dodgy, game changing penalties have been awarded to a few clubs by Styles. When he sent Habib Beye off during the Manchester City, Newcastle game back in October, he was supported by fellow referee Graham Poll (despite Poll failing to back him in 2007 when he made another bad decision during the Liverpool, Chelsea game), but former Premier League Ref Jeff Winters was not impressed and expressed his dismay at such shocking refereeing decisions on live television.

Unfortunately for Styles, he has a reputation whereby the fans are expecting a blunder. They are expecting unnecessary bookings and game changing decisions which have no foundations. Having browsed other fan-sites, forums and press reports, it is clear that the fans of other teams are just as concerned and frustrated by the level of refereeing displayed at their games as Newcastle fans are. Even the press are on his case with The Times claiming that his name suits him;

"Rob Styles could not have a more appropriate first name, could he? He has been robbing teams for so long now it is wonder that, as of yesterday, there were only 141, 163 and 209 signatures respectively on the three known petitions demanding his removal from the referees' register." - Linked to the article for your convenience.

So far Joe Kinnear has been very conservative in his opinion of how today's penalty changed the game, though no doubt this will change over the coming days.