**The officials for Aston Villa against West Ham United have been announced, and the Hammers are set to see a referee take charge who has only officiated a match with the Hammers once in the last two and a half years.**
After West Ham’s torrid time with officials this season, it appears that in recent games we’ve had an aspect of fortune, but it certainly doesn’t make up for the woes and troubles we experienced earlier on in the season, some of which had they gone the other way or been officiated differently, could’ve seen Nuno’s side comfortably out of the relegation zone.
This time round, officiating West Ham is Paul Tierney.
He has officiated the Hammers just once since 2023, which was this campaign, where he refereed our 3-0 defeat against Manchester City at the Etihad this season. One of the few games this season which hadn’t been influenced by an official, the Hammers were simply quite poor at the time.
Paul Tierney has handed out 28 yellow cards to the Hammers in the 18 matches that he has officiated, but he is yet to hand out any form of a red card – If that’s anything to go on, then we will certainly be seeing a few yellows but nothing more.
His partner on VAR will be Stuart Attwell, and his assistant will be Constantine Hatzidakis.
Stuart Attwell last refereed for the Hammers in our 2-1 defeat to Leeds United back in October of this season. Whilst he won’t be making the decisions on the pitch this time, he certainly will be making them off the pitch back in Stockley Park, should he be required.
Attwell has been a Premier League referee for a long time now. His first West Ham United match he officiated came back in 2009! He has since officiated the Hammers a total of 25 times, where he has handed out a total of 46 yellow cards and 2 red cards… not the greatest for ourselves!
The fourth official for the game will be Samuel Barrott, who has been involved in two matches so far for West Ham this season. He will be on the touchline monitoring both Emery and Nuno, who both definitely can be characters on the touchline when they want to be.
Last but not least will be Paul Tierney’s assistants, who will be both Richard West and Mark Scholes.