|
Although he managed to keep his red card in his pocket all afternoon he hit an all time best with ten yellow cards, three for Wednesday and seven for Rotherham, with all three former Burnley players Craig Armstrong, Alan Lee and John Mullin falling foul of him. He has followed that up with another seven in two games.
So it is 18 yellows in 4 games with 6 to home team players and 12 to away team players but that should be no surprise for a referee who issued 8 cards on four separate occasions last season.
He took charge of two Burnley games last season and one of his performances has led to us being banned from Millwall. He was in charge of that fixture last season and with the Clarets leading 2-0 he incredibly awarded a penalty to Millwall for a hand ball that, even if it was hand ball, was some distance outside the penalty box.
Having eventually been persuaded by the Burnley players to talk to the better positioned assistant he reversed the decision and then sent off Steven Reid for contesting the change of mind. That triggered off the violence that saw Burnley fans struggling to avoid a barrage of missiles.
Besides sending off Reid he also booked three Burnley players in Alan Moore, Lee Briscoe and Dean West.
He was also in charge of a rare event, a Burnley cup win, this against Canvey Island. He was reasonably well behaved on this occasion with Tony Grant amongst three players yellow carded.
In his first Burnley game, a 2-2 draw against Wycombe on 1997/98, he didn't issue a single card although we have had four and five yellow card games with him including an almost meaningless League Cup tie against Manchester City when Gordon Armstrong, Graham Branch and Chris Brass joined two City players in receiving yellow cards.
Pugh has found himself on the Premiership list and it is just a pity they are not exclusive to that league now, we would be much better off without his arrogant performances at Turf Moor.