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The suspension lasted until the following season, since when he's been back in the Premier League, and he's refereed two Burnley games this season. The first of them was the 5-0 defeat at Tottenham and more recently he refereed the home game against Arsenal in December when he turned in as good a performance as I've seen from a referee all season.
Ahead of that Arsenal game I said I believed him to be the best referee in the country, but having said that I feared he might have a poor game. He performed like the best referee in the country that night and had I been able to choose the referee for this game he would have been my first choice.
His performance at West Brom in the cup tie last season was just and he certainly didn't allow the words of Kevin Blackwell to affect him at Wembley. Probably his worst game involving Burnley was the 2-2 draw at Bradford City in 2002 when he 'fell' for the antics of Dimitrios Papadopoulos.
We shouldn't expect a card free game. In 34 games this season he's given out no less than 119 yellow and seven red cards. In four European games there have been just a couple of yellow cards leaving his domestic total at 117 yellow and 7 red in 32 games.
He sent off Birmingham's Barry Ferguson (0-0 home draw against Manchester City) and Abdoulaye Faye of Stoke (2-1 defeat at Hull) earlier in the season.
Since his last Burnley game he's sent off a further five players, namely Ian Henderson of Colchester as they lost 5-0 at home to Norwich, Stoke's Andy Wilkinson in a 2-1 win at Portsmouth, both Juliano Belletti and Michael Ballack as Chelsea went down 4-2 at home to Manchester City and finally last week he sent off yet another Stoke player in Dean Whitehead as they lost 2-1 at home to Spurs.
Certainly Stoke boss Tony Pulis doesn't share my belief that he's the best referee and had plenty to say about his appointment last week.
Dean has been fairly even with his yellow cards this season. Of those 117 domestic yellow cards 59 have gone to home team players and 58 to away team players.
His last game was Aston Villa's 1-1 home draw with Sunderland in midweek. There were no cards at all in this game, the first time for Mike Dean since the West Brom v Burnley cup tie last season.
The assistant referees tomorrow are Simon Beck (Bedfordshire) and Stephen Child (Kent) and the fourth official is Staffordshire based Premier League referee Alan Wiley.
Previous Burnley games:
Season | Opps | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley players carded |
a | ||||||
1997/98 | Bournemouth | h | 2-2 | 3 | 0 | . |
1997/98 | Luton | h | 1-1 | 3 | 0 | Cooke |
1998/99 | Walsall | a | 1-3 | 4 | 0 | Armstrong Brass Payton |
1999/2000 | Chesterfield | h | 2-1 | 2 | 0 | Cowan |
1999/2000 | Wigan | h | 0-0 | 5 | 0 | Johnrose Thomas |
2000/01 | Crystal Palace | h | 2-2 | 1 | 0 | . |
2002/03 | Bradford City | a | 2-2 | 6 | 2 | Cook Papadopoulos Taylor |
2003/04 | Bradford City | h | 4-0 | 0 | 0 | . |
2003/04 | Preston | a | 3-5 | 4 | 0 | Blake Gnohere West |
2003/04 | Ipswich | h | 4-2 | 3 | 0 | Chaplow McGregor |
2004/05 | Blackburn | h | 0-0 | 5 | 0 | Camara Hyde |
2005/06 | Leeds | h | 1-2 | 6 | 0 | Harley Hyde Sinclair |
2005/06 | Crystal Palace | h | 0-0 | 4 | 0 | Branch Harley |
2006/07 | Sunderland | h | 2-2 | 3 | 0 | Hyde |
2006/07 | Leicester | h | 0-1 | 3 | 0 | Caldwell |
2007/08 | Blackpool | h | 2-2 | 2 | 0 | Akinbiyi Caldwell |
2008/09 | West Brom | a | 2-2 | 0 | 0 | . |
2008/09 | Sheffield Utd | W | 1-0 | 4 | 2 | Carlisle Kalvenes |
2009/10 | Tottenham | a | 0-5 | 2 | 0 | Bikey |
2009/10 | Arsenal | h | 1-1 | 2 | 0 | Caldwell Eagles |
