Atkinson is the whistle man at Chelsea

Yes, Stoke, and he was also the referee at Hull in April five years ago when we won 4-1 to record our only other away win in the Premier League. I have to say, if we are to make it three out of three then they couldn't have found a more difficult game for us.

Atkinson was rated one of the top two performing referees last season by former ref Dermot Gallagher and he's not a referee who has given us too many problems over the years other than our game at Wolves in December 2009 when he was confronted by our then manager Owen Coyle at the end of the game having not given us a couple of penalties that looked good shouts.

It's probably not a surprise that it's a Burnley away game he's been given; this will be the 11th time he's refereed us and all but two of those games have been away from home. The first of them was the 2-0 win against Norwich close to the end of the 2006/07 season and the other was the play-off semi-final first leg against Reading when he produced his only red card so far in Burnley games when he was left with no option but to send off Reading's Andre Bikey.

He's refereed 25 domestic games this season. Three have been cup matches with the other 22 all in the Premier League. He's reached his century with 101 yellow cards while there have been three red cards.

Of those yellows, 38 have gone to home team players and 63 to away team players which suggests we need to watch our step more than Chelsea tomorrow.

There were no yellow cards in his last game but a red card prevented him having his first card free game since May 2012. That last game was West Brom's 4-0 FA Cup win against West Ham last Saturday when West Ham's Morgan Amalfitano was sent off ten minutes after coming on as a substitute.

Atkinson currently sits seventh in RATE THE REF with a rating of 70.23 out of 100.

There'll be cards tomorrow, but other than that he's one of the better referees and hopefully will have a good game.

The assistant referees are Mike Mullarkey (Devon) and Stephen Child (Kent). The fourth official is Kevin Friend (Leicestershire) who refereed our last game against Man United at Old Trafford.

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