Rob Styles of Portsmouth will take charge of his first Liverpool game of the season as we take the short journey to The Reebok Stadium to play Bolton Wanderers.

The 44-year old from Hampshire began refereeing in 1987 and has had a fairly rapid rise since. He became a Football League linesman in 1994, and finally made the Premiership list of referees in 2000. Two years later FIFA installed him on their list of officials.

He earned a reputation of not being backward in getting the cards out of his pocket, and two seasons ago Styles showed his yellow card a total of 143 times in 44 games, only 5 less yellows than his previous season. He has started this season in similar fashion already issuing 30 cautions in only 8 Premiership games.

In his only game in Europe so far he issued 6 yellows during Seville's 2-0 home win against RB Salzburg in the UEFA Cup.
Rob was one of our luckiest officials until a defeat at Blackburn Rovers on Boxing Day 2006 ended a run of twelve games going back to 3-2 defeat at Charlton Athletic in September 2003. However he has never been far away from controversy especially when it comes to the awards of penalties, twice this season he has crucially awarded game changing penalties when tv replays later showed each decision to be incorrect.

Bolton were at the wrong end of one of these decisions at Old Trafford, with the score at 0-0 he gave a penalty after he judged Ronaldo was fouled. Styles later apologised to Bolton after watching the incident again. Then just a month later he awarded Manchester City a penalty at Newcastle United, and even sent off Beye for the challenge. The match finished 2-2 and Beye's red card was overturned on appeal.

This is his first time at The Reebok since March 2007 when a late Anelka strike was not enough as Blackburn Rovers ran out 2-1 winners. In September 2002 he refereed our 3-2 win here thanks to a late Emile Heskey goal.

His assistants are Michael Murphy and Adam Watts with Phil Dowd as the fourth official.

A few memorable matches involving Liverpool and Rob Styles:

29th December 2001 - Michael Owen scores his hundredth Liverpool goal in a 1-1 draw at West Ham United

14th August 2002 - Milan Baroš scores his first Liverpool goals in a 3-2 win at Bolton Wanderers

26th January 2003 - Chris Kirkland's season is over as a serious leg injury is suffered during the FA Cup 4th round match at Crystal Palace

2nd November 2003 - A late Danny Murphy penalty gives us a 2-1 win at Fulham. Boa Morte was earlier sent-off for the hosts

30th October 2004 - Djibril Cissé's season is over following his broken leg during the 2-2 draw at Blackburn Rovers

5th February 2005 - Fernando Morientes scores his first Anfield goal in a 3-1 win over Fulham. Andy Cole became the first player to score against Liverpool in the Premiership for four different clubs with Fulham's goal

20th March 2005 - Liverpool beat Everton 2-1 in Styles' first Merseyside derby. Milan Baroš received a red card in the second half

2nd February 2006 - A record Wigan gate of 25,023 see a Sami Hyypiä goal give us all three points at Wigan Athletic

21st March 2006 - Liverpool register their best ever FA Cup win away from Anfield as Birmingham City are trounced 7-0

9th April 2006 - Robbie Fowler nabs the only goal of the game as Liverpool beat Bolton Wanderers. Dietmar Hamann plays his last match at Anfield

19th August 2006 - Robbie Fowler gets a late penalty at Sheffield United on the opening day of the season. The match saw debuts for Aurelio, Pennant, Bellamy and Gonzalez. Jan Kromkamp played in his last Liverpool game.

26th December 2006 - A host of missed chances for Liverpool as Blackburn Rovers gain a 1-0 win at Ewood Park.

20th January 2007 - Goals from Kuyt and Pennant gave us a 2-0 win over Chelsea at Anfield.

19th August 2007 - Torres scores on his Anfield debut, but a controversial penalty decision give Chelsea a share of the points.

2nd February 2008 - Peter Crouch scores in the Premiership at Anfield for the last time in a red shirt as Sunderland are beaten 3-0.