Yesterday’s EFL Cup final showed how calls from the officials can affect games. Southampton should have found themselves a goal up early on, but Manolo Gabbiadini’s close-range finish was wrongly ruled out for offside. Manchester United went on to win 3-2 and the rest, as they say, is history.

So before Leicester City host Liverpool at the King Power Stadium this evening, it’s probably worth both sets of fans getting to grips with Neil Swarbrick, who’ll be the man in the middle for the 8pm kickoff.

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Courtesy of our mates at Whoscored, Swarbrick is one of just four referees yet to show a red card this season – and has refereed the most games of those four – but he ranks fourth throughout the Premier League for yellow cards per game, dishing out 65 from his 16 outings thus far this term.

The likelihood, however, is that the game will be allowed to flow. Swarbrick is in the middle of the pile when it comes to fouls per game and even lower when it comes to penalties per game, issuing just four so far this season.

Perhaps more interestingly for Liverpool fans, his away win bias is 37.5%, the fifth-highest in the top flight, suggesting some decisions may well go the Reds’ way tonight. In fact, Swarbrick issued his most fouls against a single team this season, 18, against Leicester during a defeat to Watford, whilst he awarded just nine against Liverpool, his third fewest, when they beat West Brom in October.

A draw seems unlikely; barring Graham Scott, who has only featured five times this season Swarbrick’s portion of draws, just under 7%, is the lowest in the league.

Clearly, he likes at least one team to leave with all three points and based from his stats so far this season, Liverpool seem likeliest to come away with them.

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