The first of those two games brought no problems, but television footage certainly highlighted a number of mistakes he made in the home draw against West Brom, particularly in allowing the two West Brom goals and then denying us a clear penalty for hand ball.
That performance in particular, has contributed to him dropping down the RATE THE REF table but he's still in fifth place with a rating of 80.20 out of 100 and of those above him, three have refereed us only once and the other, Andy Penn, twice.
The 47-year-old Dean from the Wirral, has been refereeing a long time. It's now over 18 years since he became a Football League referee, his first Burnley game coming soon after against Bournemouth at home when both Chris Waddle and Eddie Howe scored.
He's gone on to become a long established select group official and also a FIFA international referee.
Like all referees, he has poor games, and besides that West Brom game last season we can point to the 2-2 draw at Bradford in 2002 and then there was the horrendous penalty decision against a cheating Blackburn in the Premier League in 2010.
But overall, he's done well. He was in charge of our play-off final win at Wembley and, for me, his best performance in a Burnley game was our FA Cup tie at West Brom in 2009.
We do know he's not shy at using his cards and in three games so far this season, all of them in the Premier League, a total of fourteen players have received yellow cards from him. Interestingly, ten of them have been home team players with only four away team players.
His last game was a week ago between Norwich and Stoke, a game that ended 1-1. Norwich had all of Steven Whittaker, Russell Martin, Sebastien Bassong and Alexander Tettey yellow carded along with Stoke's Erik Pieters.
There's never a promise of a good refereeing performance but, despite last season's West Brom game, I'm happy to see Mike Dean in charge of the game.
The assistant referees are Matthew Wilkes (West Midlands) and Daniel Cook (Hampshire). The fourth official is Football League referee Brendan Malone (Wiltshire) who sent off Marvin Bartley in his only Burnley game at Crystal Palace in August 2011.
Previous Burnley Games
Season | Opponents | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley Players Carded |
1997/98 | BOURNEMOUTH | h | 2-2 | 3 | 0 | |
1997/98 | LUTON | h | 1-1 | 3 | 0 | n Cooke |
1998/99 | WALSALL | a | 1-3 | 4 | 0 | n Armstrong, Brass, Payton |
1999/2000 | CHESTERFIELD | h | 2-1 | 2 | 0 | n Cowan |
1999/2000 | WIGAN | h | 0-0 | 5 | 0 | n Johnrose, Thomas |
2000/01 | CRYSTAL PALACE | h | 2-2 | 1 | 0 | |
2002/03 | BRADFORD CITY | a | 2-2 | 6 | 2 | n Cook,Papadopoulos, Taylor |
2003/04 | BRADFORD CITY | h | 4-0 | 0 | 0 | |
2003/04 | PRESTON | a | 3-5 | 4 | 0 | n Blake, Gnohere, West |
2003/04 | IPSWICH | h | 4-2 | 3 | 0 | n Chaplow, McGregor |
2004/05 | BLACKBURN | h | 0-0 | 5 | 0 | n Camara, Hyde |
2005/06 | LEEDS | h | 1-2 | 5 | 0 | n Harley, Hyde |
2005/06 | CRYSTAL PALACE | h | 0-0 | 4 | 0 | n Harley, Branch |
2006/07 | SUNDERLAND | h | 2-2 | 3 | 0 | n Hyde |
2006/07 | LEICESTER | h | 0-1 | 3 | 0 | n Caldwell |
2007/08 | BLACKPOOL | h | 2-2 | 2 | 0 | n Akinbiyi, Caldwell |
2008/09 | WEST BROM | a | 2-2 | 0 | 0 | |
2008/09 | SHEFFIELD UNITED | W | 1-0 | 4 | 2 | n Carlisle, Kalvenes |
2009/10 | TOTTENHAM | a | 0-5 | 2 | 0 | n Bikey |
2009/10 | ARSENAL | h | 1-1 | 2 | 0 | n Caldwell, Eagles |
2009/10 | BLACKBURN | h | 0-1 | 5 | 0 | n Alexander, Fox, Duff |
2009/10 | TOTTENHAM | h | 4-2 | 0 | 0 | |
2010/11 | LEICESTER | a | 0-4 | 3 | 0 | n Marney, Rodrigues, Bikey |
2012/13 | PETERBOROUGH | h | 5-2 | 2 | 0 | n Mills |
2013/14 | BLACKBURN | a | 2-1 | 3 | 0 | n Arfield |
2014/15 | CRYSTAL PALACE | a | 0-0 | 5 | 0 | n Ings, Sordell, Boyd |
2014/15 | NEWCASTLE | a | 3-3 | 6 | 0 | n Ings, Mee, Trippier, Boyd |
2014/15 | WEST BROM | h | 2-2 | 4 | 0 | |
2014/15 | ARSENAL | h | 0-1 | 2 | 0 | n Mee, Duff |