|
The Preston players can be slightly more relaxed than ours, he has issued yellow cards to home team players just 3 times this season with the other 14 picked up by away team players.
This is no one off for him and since he joined the league list in 1997 there have been just 280 yellow cards in 184 games and only 8 red cards.
Some will say he is too lenient and last time he took charge of a Burnley game he allowed Marlon Broomes to get away with a dreadful challenge in the dying minutes of our home win against Grimsby. But there is no doubt he referees with a lot more common sense than most referees,
There were no cards in that Grimsby game and on the occasions he has been in charge of our games there has never been a flurry of them. In the 2000/01 season he booked Graham Branch and Micky Mellon in a 2-1 defeat at Birmingham whilst in the previous season there were no cards at all in the LDV Vans defeat at Wigan.
It was the same again in 1998/99 with no cards in the League Cup game at Bury and in the 3-1 league win at home to Colchester there were no yellows but he did, and with no choice, send off Cochester's Lua Lua.
His only other Burnley game came in his first season, 1997/98 and again there were no cards at all. So in six Burnley games there have been just the two yellow cards and one red card.
Hopefully that sort of record will continue tomorrow and there will be no need for him to start waving cards about.