Clattenburg will referee our Boxing Day game

He had an outstanding game that afternoon but just a few  weeks previously he had a nightmare when we played tomorrow's opponents Hull at Turf Moor, running amok with a staggering ten yellow cards.

He was in the middle of a poor time for him which started when he rushed away from a game at West Brom to go and see Ed Sheeran and then followed it up with controversial games at Everton and Middlesbrough as well as the Turf Moor shocker.

One of his problems does seem to be his eagerness to be the centre of attention but there is no doubt that when he is refereeing well he is, undoubtedly, one of the best referees in the country.

He has a RATE THE REF rating of 76.66 out of 100 which confirms that, over time, he hasn't been a bad referee when he's taken charge of Burnley games and we can hope that it continues tomorrow.

This season he's refereed 15 domestic games and tomorrow will be his first Football League game since February. In those games he's handed out 48 yellow cards and two red cards.

Of those yellow cards, 27 have gone to home team players and 21 to away team players. The two players he's sent off are John Terry in Chelsea's 3-2 win at West Brom and Dwight Gayle of Crystal Palace in a 3-1 home defeat to West Ham.

His most recent game was Watford's comprehensive 3-0 win against Liverpool last Sunday when the only yellow card was given to Watford's Miguel Britos.

If Clattenburg has a good game then we can expect one of the best in the business, and hopefully he won't referee it as he did when the teams met at the Turf last season.

The assistant referees are Gary Beswick (County Durham) and Mick McDonough (Northumberland). The fourth official is Football League referee Mark Haywood (West Yorkshire) whose last Burnley game was the 2-0 win against Wolves in November 2012 when Sean Dyche took charge of the Clarets for the first time.

Previous Burnley Games