Keith Stroud........card happy???

[Rob_the_Ram]

Although there were a few poor challenges last night, I can't help thinking that Stroud was another card happy "look at me" ref.
Three bookings total was probably about right for that game in my view. There were NINE with the two for Perch.
Although a "hard" game, I didn't think any particularly reckless or with intent. Just a few where the challenge was late by a fraction of a second. It happens but surely not always worthy of a yellow.
Suspensions arising from these cheap bookings can be costly as Christmas approaches when added to likely injuries picked up after half a season.

[MauldenMike]

Derby committed 9 fouls last night, QPR 15. That translates to a card for every 2.25 Derby fouls and one for every 3 QPR fouls. To date this year Stroud has handed out 56 yellows and 3 reds in 16 games (so an average of 3.875 per game).

It's true that on a couple of occasions last night (maybe that's exaggerating it but there was certainly one where Cyrus and Yun were joined in the box by several other handbag wheelers) it looked like things were getting a bit feisty but it was pretty tame stuff and the stats should make embarrassing reading for Stroud.

The fouls where cards were handed out, in my opinion, weren't the worst ones either. Stroud should have booked Yun early on and set the standard which he was going to apply. Instead he developed card malaria as the match progressed - not good for a referee trying to reestablish himself in Prem League

[Gaspode]

seemed to upset both sides equally and never seemed to be in control of the game - though he wasn't helped by 3 assistants that seemed to make things up as they went along and a QPR team that had been directed to disrupt us by niggley fouls and the odd case of brutality - really don't understand why a team with a number of quality players would take that approach when I think they could have genuinely caused us problems if they'd tried to play....

[RamBamFan]

Rotherham were a lot dirtier on Saturday. But there were a couple of challenges that were certainly a bit 'dirty'. There seems to be an unwritten law in refereeing that they can't hand out a card in the first 10 minutes, because someone (I can't remember who) did a nasty challenge early on that in any other part of the game would have warranted at least a yellow, maybe even red.