A Marriner at the seaside

This will be just Marriner's second Burnley game and the first one was two seasons ago in March 2006 when we drew 1-1 with Southampton at home. He had to contend with a couple of top divers that night with Peter Madsen and Grzegorz Rasiak falling about all over the place but to his credit he didn't fall for it although he didn't take any action against the players.

Indeed he kept his cards in his pocket all night and overall had an excellent game. It was also a card free game the last time he refereed Blackpool. That was at the end of last season when Blackpool won 6-3 at Swansea.

He's had a busy Christmas. On Boxing Day he sent off Fulham's Moritz Volz in their 5-1 defeat at Spurs and then three days later he dismissed Ferrie Bodde of Swansea as they beat League One Leeds 3-2. In both games he's also yellow carded five players.

He's sent off two other players this season. Greg Halford of RK Sunderland in their 1-1 home draw against Fulham was the first and more recently Chelsea's Michael Essien in a 2-0 win at Derby.

I think we might need to be a little more cautious where bookings are concerned. In nineteen games this season he's just about averaging three per game with 60 yellow cards. Of those 21 have gone to home team players and 39 to away team players. In one run this season he issued 18 consecutive cards to away team players.

Overall he's not courted too much controversy, and if he referees in the manner he did when we last had him then there will be no problems. AND tomorrow is his 37^th birthday so surely where cards are concerned he should be receiving them and not handing them out.

He will be assisted by Roy Burton (Staffordshire) and Bob Pollock (Merseyside) whilst on fourth official duty will be Tony Bates (Stoke-on-Trent) who is currently in third place in our 'Rate the Ref' table following a very good performance in the middle at Scunthorpe back in August.

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2005/06	Southampton	h	1-1	0	0	.