Clattenburg gets Pompey game

The last time Mark Clattenburg was at Turf Moor the winning goal was scored by David Nugent, then plying his trade with Portsmouth and playing against the Clarets in a League Cup tie. It's not his only Burnley v Portsmouth game either; he refereed our last ever home league game against them in the 2002/03 season.

That Nugent goal, the only one of the game, was scored at the cricket field end and there was a clear handball that was missed by Clattenburg. Despite that, he's usually been OK in our games, apart from his first Burnley game in 2001 when we played Crystal Palace.

This will be his tenth Burnley game with six of the previous nine having been at home. Should he turn in a performance anything like the one at Stamford Bridge then I don't think we'll have any worries. At Barnsley, he wasn't quite at his best for which we were fortunate otherwise we might have seen Richard Eckersley sent off.

He does have his moments, and one came in the recent game between Bolton and Fulham when he disallowed a late Kevin Davies goal, much to the displeasure of the home manager Owen Coyle and Davies. The Bolton forward has been yellow carded eight times this season and four of those have been when Clattenburg has been referee.

This will be his 31^st game of the season and in the previous 30 games he's handed out 79 yellow cards and four red cards. Of those yellow cards, 36 have gone to home team players and 43 to away team players.

The four players he's sent off are Blackburn's Vince Grella in their 2-1 home win against Aston Villa, Bernard Mendy of Hull in a 3-3 home draw with West Ham, Craig Bellamy as Manchester City drew 3-3 at Bolton and most recently Manchester United's Darren Fletcher in a 1-1 draw at Birmingham.

Mark Clattenburg has refereed Portsmouth just the once this season, a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea.

His assistant referees at Turf Moor will be Peter Kirkup (Northamptonshire) and Jake Collin (Merseyside). Football League referee Phil Gibbs (West Midlands) is fourth official. He's in his second season on the league list and is still to referee a Burnley game.

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2001/02	Crystal Palace	h	1-0	4	0	Grant Taylor
2002/03	Portsmouth	h	0-3	5	0	Briscoe
2002/03	Sheffield Wed	h	2-7	6	1	I Moore(R) Armstrong Davis Gnohere Taylor
2003/04	West Brom	a	1-4	5	0	Branch Camara May
2004/05	Liverpool	h	1-0	5	1	Chaplow Valois
2006/07	QPR	h	2-0	3	0	Duff Harley J O'Connor
2007/08	Portsmouth	h	0-1	3	0	J O'Connor
2009/10	Chelsea	a	0-3	1	0	Mears
2009/10	Barnsley	a	2-3	3	0	Eckersley Duff