D'Urso makes early return

D'Urso had an excellent game but that was probably no surprise for a referee who, more often than not, has refereed well.

Back at the start of February, in the build up to the Peterborough game, I referred to his demotion from the Premier League after he'd had the audacity to appeal his relegation from the league. That came after a 28 day suspension for an incident in a game involving our opponents tomorrow, Blackburn Rovers.

He yellow carded Barry Ferguson twice in the game without sending him off and, despite winning his appeal, he was never again allocated a Premier League game and this after surviving his first season in the top flight when he suffered the bullying from Manchester United players who, led by Roy Keane, confronted him after he'd awarded Middlesbrough a penalty.

The 49-year-old is now in his 19th season on the Football League list and this season he's refereed a total of 32 games. He's handed out 73 yellow cards in those games with 31 of them going to home team players and 42 to away team players. There have been five red cards to add to that.

His last game came a week last Tuesday in League Two. It was Rotherham's 4-0 win at Oxford in which  there were no cards.

Tomorrow the assistant referees are Wayne Barratt Worcestershire) and Seb Stockbridge (Tyne & Wear). The fourth official is Scott Mathieson (Stockport), another experienced referee whose last Burnley game was the 2-1 home defeat against Leeds in November 2011.

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