If a trip to the league leaders wasn’t hard enough, Dale’s record under referee David Phillips will give even greater cause for concern.
Of course, it’s entirely coincidental, but the Chichester-based official has overseen only two Dale matches in his four-year league career and we have conceded four goals each time!
Back in December 2008 he was the man-in-the-middle for the 4-1 defeat at Exeter, a game in which Scott Wiseman was sent-off just before half-time.
And then last September he took charge of the embarrassing game at Stevenage in which Dale put on a defensive comedy show to lose 4-2.
Mr Phillips, a police officer, is in his fifth campaign as a league referee and although the majority of his games have been in League One and League Two, he has refereed a small number of Championship fixtures.
This term he has so far refereed five matches, showing 18 yellow cards and one red, which was humorously to MK Dons’ Dean Lewington in their defeat at Swindon.