First time at the Turf

The prison officer from Wythenshawe is having an eventful second season on the list and has disappointed a number of managers on the way. Back in August both Martin Allen and Aidy Boothroyd were upset of his handling of the Championship game between Leicester and Watford. He yellow carded no fewer than ten players that day, five from each side.

At the beginning of October both Phil Brown and Alan Pardew were angered by his performance in the Hull v Charlton game. Both Ian Ashbee (Hull) and Lloyd Sam (Charlton) were sent off.

Brown said of his performance: "We were mugged in a very unprofessional manner in our own backyard. There were a lot of poor decisions made, both minor and major. I thought the game suffered and I thought the sportsmanship suffered. The decision making process of this referee was very poor."

Controversy has continued to follow Taylor and in his last game he sent off Nottingham Forest's Kelvin Wilson in their 2-1 home win over Huddersfield. He was sent off for an adjudged foul but video evidence showed that no foul had taken place. Even so the appeal to the FA was lost.

Taylor's recent form with cards is worrying; this was the third successive match in which he has sent a player off. Prior to the game at Forest he'd dismissed Kevin Kyle in Coventry's 4-0 defeat at Blackpool and Bury's Paul Scott as they lost 1-0 at home to Chesterfield.

In total he has sent off six players this season in 21 games. To add to that he's handed out 67 yellow cards (just over four per game). Of those 31 have gone to home players and 36 to away players.

We'll see how this one goes, and hope there'll be no controversy from this game.

He will be assisted by Andrew Smith (West Yorkshire) and Paul Tierney (Lancashire) with fourth official duties in the hands of Jason Tyas (West Yorkshire).