Miller – and not Pat

Last updated : 09 February 2007 By Tony Scholes
Tomorrow will be Nigel Miller's sixth Burnley game and if we want any guide as to how he might referee we could take a look back at the previous five. He's been consistent in those games, he's turned in five awful performances.

He's sent off two players in those games, both times he's left us playing against ten men. Three seasons ago he gave Rob Hulse his marching orders, but last season he dismissed Coventry's Stephen Hughes for arguing the toss over a ridiculous penalty decision, the one that Gifton smashed into the cricket field stand roof.

The obvious things in the game seem to pass him by, and on his last visit for the Stoke game last season there were only just over twenty minutes to go when he finally put his whistle to his mouth and gave us a free kick.

The worst of the lot though was the game at QPR in October 2004 when even Ian Holloway, commenting on Miller's performance, said: “I wouldn't be happy if I was Steve Cotterill,” this after a series of bizarre decisions at either end of the pitch in the opening quarter of an hour just about decided the result.

Miller doesn't go over the top usually with the cards although he comes into this game on the back of two games that have left him targeted by managers. He handed out no fewer than eight yellow cards in the cup tie between Ipswich and Swansea in a game that Ipswich won with a penalty that both managers admitted was extremely harsh.

Three days later he was back in East Anglia, and this time upsetting Wolves boss Mick McCarthy. He sent off two Wolves players, Gary Breen and then Joey McNamara. It is the Breen dismissal that has caused the stir. He was sent off for a professional foul which carries a one match suspension but for some reason Miller recorded it as violent conduct (which it most certainly wasn't) and that means a three match ban for Breen. The referee refused to change it, and the three match suspension stands.

Breen and McNamara are two of nine players he's sent off this season. He sent off one from each side in the League Two game between Chester and Macclesfield, and Chester's Laurence Wilson is the only one of his nine dismissals this season who was playing for the home side.

His yellow cards are much more even. There have been 66 of them and after an early season flurry where he was booking far more home players than away players he's now switched that and more recently it has been three away players to every one home player. His total to date is 29 home players and 37 away players.

Nigel Miller has to be a better referee than the one we've seen in previous games, he simply would not have been allowed to continue refereeing if that was his standard. Maybe we'll see one of his better performances tomorrow.

He will be assisted by Andrew Hutchinson (Cheshire) and Dave McCallum (Tyne & Wear) and the fourth official will be Iain Siddall (Lancashire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

2005/06

Stoke

h

1-0

3

0

Duff Hyde Sinclair

2005/06

Coventry

h

4-0

0

1

.

2004/05

QPR

a

0-3

5

0

Blake Duff McGreal Sinclair

2004/05

Bury

a

3-2

1

0

.

2003/04

West Brom

h

1-1

4

1

Grant McGregor