Attwell has the whistle tonight

That game at Vicarage Road was always a worry. That was where he'd allowed that phantom goal against Reading and he hadn't refereed there since. He was, unquestionably, put under pressure that day by unforgiving Watford fans.

Attwell was promoted to the Premier League early in his career. I could say controversy followed him but it was all of his own making and reached such levels that he was removed from the select group of referees.

He does still get occasional games at the top and this season has twice been allocated Premier League games, West Brom's home game against Southampton, followed by Swansea v Everton a week later.

He sent off Kevin Mirallas in the second of those games and he's one of two players he's dismissed this season, the other being Cambridge's Chris Dunn in a 1-0 defeat at Wycombe.

He's used his yellow card on 30 occasions in 11 games. Fourteen of them have gone to home team players with sixteen to away team players. One of those yellow cards was shown to Cardiff's Matthew Connolly, the only card in Attwell's last game, the 0-0 draw between Preston and Cardiff three days ago.

It would be impossible to catalogue all his shocking games; an East Midlands derby between Derby and Forest a few years ago would need a chapter all of its own, but we've got off reasonably lightly and he's not been too bad when he's refereed us.

Stuart Attwell is currently 46th in RATE THE REF with a rating of 57.90 out of 100.

The assistant referees are Wayne Barratt (Worcestershire) and Andrew Hendley (West Midlands). The fourth official is Trevor Kettle (Leicestershire) who refereed our Capital One Cup tie at Port Vale in August.

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