Rob Styles (Waterlooville, Hampshire)
Rob Styles is into his sixth season as a Premiership referee and is one of the select list of professional referees.
Since his appointment he has developed a fearsome record for giving red cards and penalties. Unfortunately for him many fans see him as consistently inconsistent, to his credit he appears to be as inconsistent with the big teams as with any other teams.
Mr Styles has officiated at 8 games involving Fulham in the Premiership and The Cottagers have won 2, drawn 1 and lost 5. Fulham fans will look back with concern, to a number of instances where Mr Styles' standard of refereeing has been called into question, last season awarding Middlesbrough a penalty for an incident that took place outside the box, allowing a Liverpool goal that started with a foul on a Diop, the home Premiership game against Liverpool in 2003/2004 season, where he red carded Boa Morte but yellow carded Liverpool's Murphy for a similar bad tackle. He also gave a penalty against Knight, for Liverpool's winning goal, although for some reason did not yellow card the tall defender.
Ref Styles seems to have a special liking for Luis Boa Morte and Zat Knight and therefore both players would be wise to watch their steps.
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Referee Stats - 2004/2005
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Ref "Red Terror" Styles seemed to change last season in comparison to his performance in previous seasons at least.  His whistle and cards were all less active than in previous seasons. However ...... Last season he was still joint top red carder and penalty giver out of 22 colleagues.
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Mr. Styles's |
Av Premiership Ref |
|
Total |
Match Avg |
Total |
Match Avg |
| Games |
23 |
|
18 |
|
| Fouls |
531 |
23.09 |
467 |
26.17 |
| Yellows |
66 |
2.87 |
49 |
2.73 |
| Reds |
7 |
0.30 |
3 |
0.16 |
| Penalties |
8 |
0.35 |
4 |
0.21 |
| Fouls per Yellow |
- |
8.1 |
- |
9.6 |
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| Homer? (2004-2005) |
| Total |
Home |
Away |
Total |
| Games |
Fouls |
Yellow |
Red |
Pen |
Fouls |
Yellow |
Red |
Pen |
Fouls |
Yellow |
Red |
Pen |
| 23 |
237 |
27 |
6 |
4 |
294 |
39 |
1 |
4 |
531 |
66 |
7 |
8 |
| |
45% |
41% |
86% |
50% |
55% |
59% |
14% |
50% |
- |
- |
- |
- |
| Premiership Average |
| 18 |
48% |
41% |
46% |
61% |
52% |
59% |
54% |
39% |
467 |
49 |
3 |
4 |
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Ref Styles ended last season not too biased in his distribution of fouls and yellow cards changing from being one of the biggest homers in the Premiership to being fairly even handed.Unfortunately that even-handedness did not extend to red cards and penalties where home squads, as we experienced, got the rough edge of his tongue totally out of line with the average. Hopefully he is better this season
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Previous Fulham games what was refed by Rob Styles
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2004/200519-04-2005 Premiership Middlesbro 1-1 Fulham 1y 0r
Bookings: Southgate (Middlesbro)
Referee Rob Styles deprived Fulham of all three points when he pointed to the penalty spot after Edwin van der Sar and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink collided going for a high ball in an incident that quite clearly took place outside the box.
Fulham boss Chris Coleman lost his cool and had to be restrained after attempting to confront Styles at the final whistle. Referee Style telephoned Chris Coleman, after seeing the video replays, to apologise for his mistake. That was nice of him eh? 05-02-2005 Premiership Liverpool 3-1 Fulham 5y 0r
Bookings: Luis Garcia (Liverpool) Diop, Pembridge, Rehman, Van der Sar (Fulham)
Traore, of Liverpool, mugged Diop, who had just clashed heads with Gerrard seconds before, and charged forward with the ball passing out to Riise. The pulled back cross was expertly drilled home from eight yards by Baros.
Fulham players and management were furious with referee Rob Styles for not penalising Traore for the challenge on Diop. Van der Sar was booked for dissent but the goal stood.
27-11-2004 Premiership Fulham 0-2 Blackburn 3y 1r
Bookings: Diop, Knight (sent off 76 for second yellow), (Fulham) Ferguson (Blackburn)
21-08-2004 Premiership Fulham 2-0 Bolton 0y 0r
2003/2004
06-03-2004 FA Cup Man Utd 2-1 Fulham 6y 0r
Bookings: Keane, Phil Neville (Man Utd) Boa Morte, Goma, Hayles, Volz (Fulham)
02-11-2003 Premiership Fulham 1-2 Liverpool 2y 1r
Bookings: Boa Morte, Boa Morte (sent off 90) (Fulham) Murphy (Liverpool)
Substitute referee Mr Styles' performance left something to be desired particularly after the break, and a series of outrageous decisions in favour of Liverpool clearly started to unsettle the Whites.
And of course if he had shown any sort of consistency, Danny Murphy would have been sitting having an early bath, with Boa, instead of converting the winning penalty after his premeditated assault on Steed Malbranque - Murphy, had violently fouled Malbranque at knee level and was yellow carded after a delay during which home fans became extremely upset.
The bias against Fulham caused a great deal of upset for Fulham players and fans.
2002/2003
23-10-2002 Premiership Fulham 0-1 West Ham 5y 1r
Bookings: Boa Morte, Marlet, Knight (sent off 90) (Fulham) Cisse, Dailly, Repka (West Ham)
Mr Styles sent off Zat Knight following his vain effort to prevent Defoe steaming through a hole in the defence.31-08-2002 Premiership West Brom 1-0 Fulham 7y 0r
Bookings: Hughes, Johnson, Moore, Wallwork (West Brom) Boa Morte, Finnan, Sean Davis (Fulham)
Mr Styles had one of those afternoons which gives spectators valid grounds for complaint - pedantic, overly fussy and apparently without the remotest sympathy for football as an entertainment. Naturally the fans voiced their complaints in time-honoured fashion, the noisiest cameo of the entire afternoon reserved for the referee's half-time walk down the tunnel.
2001/2002
20-04-2002 Premiership Leeds 0-1 Fulham 5y 0r
Bookings: Bowyer, Matteo (Leeds) Goma, Legwinski, Van der Sar (Fulham)
2000/2001
12-08-2000 Division 1 Fulham 2-0 Crewe 12-08-2000 1y 0r
Bookings: Macauley (Crewe)
1999/200018-09-1999 Division 1 Fulham 1-0 QPR 2y 1r
Bookings: Scully, Steiner, Steiner (sent off 41) (QPR)
1998/199906-02-1999 Division 2 Wycombe 1-1 Fulham 5y 0r
Bookings: Kavanagh, Scott, Stallard (Wycombe) Coleman, Peschisolido (Fulham)
1997/199816-11-1997 FA Cup Margate 1-2 Fulham 2y 0r
Bookings: Sykes (Margate) Carpenter (Fulham)
13-04-1998 Division 2 Fulham 5-0 Carlisle 4y 1r
Bookings: Smith (Fulham) Milligan, Smart, Varty, Hopper (sent off 72)(Carlisle)