West Yorkshire referee David Coote returns to Loftus Road for the first time since 2014 on Wednesday night as the R's face Derby County.
Referee >>> David Coote (West Yorkshire), first QPR appointment since 2014.
Assistants >>> Nigel Lugg (Surrey) and Daniel Robathan (Bedfordshire)
Fourth Official >>> James Linington (Isle of Wight)
QPR 1 Reading 3, Sunday February 16, 2014, Championship
Both teams had had their 15 minute spells at this point, and referee David Coote — in his first ever QPR appointment — decided it was his turn to dominate proceedings for a quarter of an hour before half time. Certainly no complaints could be made about quick fire yellow cards for Clint Hill after he’d been skinned by Le Fondre and hauled him back, or Williams who was turned by Hoilett on halfway and also elected for a cynical tug back to halt the attack. But Pogrebnyak was then released without further punishment after an obvious shove on Joey Barton and play was also allowed to continue with Hill down with an obvious head injury. Later the referee awarded Reading a free kick for a non-existent push from a distance of 30 yards away when the linesman next to the incident had given the home team a throw in and Rangers were lucky that no visiting player was available to turn in Obita’s extraordinarily good cross through the Loft End goal mouth.
Rangers were rocking and Barton had to take a suspension-triggering tenth yellow card of the season for fouling McCleary — had he not done so Reading could have been in for a fourth — and Kranjcar followed him into the book for pulling back McAnuff. The game became a stop-start affair, littered with cards and injuries, not helped by an incredibly pernickety refereeing display from Coote. Sky’s decision to schedule this against Arsenal v Liverpool on BT Sport didn’t exactly look shrewd — anybody watching this instead needs their head examined — but for all of that it could have turned into a cliff hanger ending, and potentially another three all draw, had Doyle headed home his second of the game from Hoilett’s deflected cross on the goal line. Only he will know how he missed.
Kaspars Gorkss did his best for his former side with a wild challenge on Junior Hoilett close to the far touchline that brought an immediate and deserved red card — although I’m not sure it was vicious enough for a loyal servant to the club to be booed off by the home fans — but any attempts the visitors did make at capitalising on that numerical advantage were ended by referee Coote who bizarrely decide to start blowing his whistle and awarding fouls for mysterious pushing offences every time the ball went within 20 yards of the Reading penalty area. That restricted the R’s to long range shots only — Traore hit one at McCarthy, Barton smacked a volley a foot over the top.
QPR: Green 6; Hughes 5, Dunne 5, Hill 6, Assou-Ekotto 5 (Benayoun 78, 5); Hoilett 6, Kranjcar 5, Barton 6, Traore 6; Doyle 6, Keane 6 (Zamora 57, 5)
Subs not used: Onuoha, Jenas, Henry, Murphy, Maiga
Goals: Doyle 20 (assisted Traore/Hoilett/Keane)
Bookings: Hoilett 14 (foul), Hill 25 (foul), Barton 60 (foul), Kranjcar 62 (foul)
Reading: McCarthy 6; Gunter 6, Gorkss 6, Pearce 7, Obita 7; McCleary 8 (Kelly 90+3, -), Williams 8, Akpan 7, McAnuff 7; Pogrebnyak 6 (Robson-Kanu 85, -), Le Fondre 7 (Hector 73, 6)
Subs not used: Federici, Drenthe, Guthrie, Blackman
Goals: Williams 10 (assisted Le Fondre), Pearce 56 (assisted McAnuff), McCleary 58 (unassisted)
Sent off: Gorkss 70 (serious foul play)
Bookings: Williams 29 (foul), McCleary 46 (foul), Obita 90 (foul)
Referee — David Coote (Nottinghamshire) 4 A bit of a pain in the arse really. His grasp of the laws around injured players seemed rather loose — Reading were allowed to play on with Clint Hill on the floor with a face injury, then in the second half play was stopped with Pogrebnyak sitting down half a yard from the touchline. The final ten minutes where he awarded free kicks for mystery offences every time QPR went near the penalty area was bizarre. Red card for Gorkss probably justified.
Nine yellow cards in Brentford's home win against Burton at the weekend was a season high for Coote who has shown 71 yellows and two reds in 19 matches so far. A dozen of those games have been in the Championship, including a seven yellow and one red haul at Barnsley v Reading in September. He was in charge of Derby's 1-0 win at Preston back in August.
Last season he booked 111 players and sent five off in 30 games. That was topped, on two separate occasions, by a six yellow and two card haul in a single game — Burton v Port Vale and Chesterfield v Peterborough in League One. His only Derby appointment was a 1-1 draw at home to Reading in January.
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Pictures — Action Images