Ilderton again

All his previous Burnley games have been at the Turf, and in all three of them he has awarded the Clarets a penalty. He had a poor game last season for the visit of Millwall, a game we won with a spot kick from Robbie Blake, but had a good game when Brighton were the visitors earlier in the season. On that occasion a Garreth O’Connor penalty earned us a point.

He won’t fondly remember his last visit, a day when he was badly let down by his assistant who flagged the Watford goalkeeper for carrying the ball outside the box when he clearly didn’t. There were no problems with the penalty he gave us that day when Foster pulled down Graham Branch.

What sort of referee is he? He’s certainly not one who constantly wants to stop the game and often he is a referee that goes almost unnoticed, the best kind. He does have his moments though and despite not being an overactive referee in terms of cards, he handed out seven in a recent game at Preston.

Overall his card record is as low as you see with 60 yellow and 3 red in 26 games this season. What could be of concern to Burnley is that he does tend to favour the home sides with the cards with only 21 of the yellows going to home players and the other 39 to away players. That has not been the case this season though when all three bookings in our two games have gone our way despite being at home.

I’ve not seen him referee away from Turf Moor, but overall I will be happy if he referees in the way he has done at Burnley this season.

He will be assisted by Ian Evans and Ian Scarr whilst the fourth official duties will be carried out by Oliver Langford. All three are from the West Midlands.

Previous Burnley games: