| Last month Kent referee Steve Bennett was expected to referee his first Turf Moor game of the season when we played West Ham, but a late change saw Howard Webb take charge. |
Three days later Bennett himself was a late change for our game at Fulham, this being his second Burnley game of the season after he'd refereed our first ever Premier League game at Stoke.
He could hardly be blamed for the hapless assistant referee at Craven Cottage who was unaware of the offside law and probably Bennett's most controversial moment was in awarding Fulham the softest of free kicks from which they scored their third goal.
Other than that, we've no problems to report from his two Burnley games this season although we can only hope he's better than he was last time he was at Burnley for the home game against Doncaster last season. He sent off Steven Thompson and yet somehow allowed Matt Mills to get away with anything he wanted.
This season he's refereed 26 games that have seen him hand out 98 yellow cards and five red cards. Of those yellow cards, 42 have gone to home team players and 56 to away team players.
Aston Villa's Habib Beye was the first player he sent off this season in their 2-1 defeat at West Ham. The other red card before the New Year was for Younes Kaboul, then Portsmouth for removing his shirt in a goal celebration after he'd scored the equaliser at Sunderland in stoppage time.
More recently he's sent off Blackburn's Chris Samba as they went down 3-0 at Stoke on the day he should have been refereeing at Burnley, Emmanuel Adebayor, also at Stoke, as Manchester City lost their FA Cup replay 3-1, and the last of the red cards came in his last game at Sunderland on Tuesday night when he dismissed Bolton's Sam Ricketts for a second yellow card.
Three other players received yellow cards in this game. They were Sunderland's Darren Bent and Lorik Cana as well as Chung-Yong Lee of Bolton. Certainly the visiting manager wasn't happy with Bennett's performance and he confronted him on the pitch at the final whistle.
The assistant referees today are Andy Garratt (West Midlands) and Trevor Massey (Cheshire). The fourth official is Premier League referee Phil Dowd whose last Burnley game was our home game against Chelsea in January. Previous Burnley games: Season | Opps | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley players carded | a | | | | | | | 1997/98 | Gillingham | a | 0-2 | 2 | 0 | Cooke | 2003/04 | Walsall | a | 1-0 | 2 | 0 | Grant Roche | 2008/09 | Doncaster | h | 0-0 | 6 | 1 | Akinbiyi Eagles Gudjonsson Thompson(Y/R) | 2009/10 | Stoke | a | 0-2 | 4 | 0 | Alexander Jordan | 2009/10 | Fulham | a | 0-3 | 1 | 0 | . |
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