Ref-Watch: Nottingham Forest (A)

If you were to type into Google ‘Keith Hill referee’, instead of finding the actual whistle-blower himself, the majority of results would be about his namesake, the current Rochdale boss, complaining about the standard of officiating. Take from that what you will.

It’s more than likely that you’ll take absolutely nothing, so I’ll get straight down to business with Hill’s (the referee) stats. Based in Hertfordshire, he has taken charge of 17 games so far this season, handing out 68 yellow cards and three red. That gives a rather high average of 4.18 cards per game. He has also awarded six penalties.

The ninth of those 17 games was Reading’s League Cup tie against Everton back in September, when Nick Blackman put us ahead at half-time before goals from Ross Barkley and Gerard Deulofeu won the fixture for the Premier League side.  Hill gave three yellow cards that day, all of them going to Royals players – Michael Hector, Paolo Hurtado and Lucas Piazon. That match was the 18th previous encounter he has officiated involving the Biscuitmen, and our ninth loss under his control. We’ve won four times and drawn five times.

Meanwhile, Nottingham Forest haven’t lost when the 46 year old has been the man in the middle since their days in League One in 2007, and beat QPR 2-1 earlier this season with Hill officiating.

Tomorrow’s assistant referees will be Stuart Eagland and Geoffrey Russell, whilst Christopher Kavanagh is the fourth official.