Jones is in charge at Wigan

Last updated : 20 March 2010 By Tony Scholes
The Hull game was somewhat controversial with all the debatable decisions going our way. That's no surprise for a referee that, right from the first time we saw him at Brentford in 1997, has tended to give somewhat dubious decisions in favour of the home team.

He'd been left out of the Premier League because of the balloon incident at Sunderland and the Hull game was his first game back. That one led to another brief departure from the top flight.

That too was at Burnley, for the Fulham game six weeks later, and then only when he was rushed in as a late replacement for Alan Wiley. Thankfully, presumably for Fulham, he didn't have a difficult game that day.

He's refereed another six Premier League games since and so far this season he's sent off four players and yellow carded 88 in 26 games. Of those yellow cards, 34 have gone to home team players and 54 to away team players.

Geovanni, in that Hull game at Turf Moor, was the first player he sent off this season. The others have been Coventry's Stephen Wright in a 2-2 draw at QPR, Nadjim Abdou of Millwall as they drew 4-4 at Charlton and Burton's Aaron Webster at Hereford as his side won 4-3.

The last time he sent a home player off was last season when he dismissed Blackburn's Jason Roberts against one of his former clubs West Brom.

Jones' last game came last Sunday when he refereed Manchester United's 3-0 Old Trafford win against Fulham. The two yellow cards went to Antonio Valencia (Man U) and Danny Murphy (Fulham).

The assistant referees this afternoon are David Coote (Notinghamshire) and Scott Ledger (South Yorkshire) whilst the fourth official is Premier League referee Kevin Friend (Leicester).

Previous Burnley games:

Season

Opps

V

Res

Y

R

Burnley players carded

a

1997/98

Brentford

h

1-1

2

0

Payton

1998/99

Chesterfield

a

0-1

3

0

Cooke

1999/2000

Bristol City

a

0-0

3

0

Mullin

2000/01

Wolves

a

0-1

2

0

Cooke Weller

2001/02

Wimbledon

h

3-2

5

0

A Moore

2002/03

Coventry

h

3-1

1

1

.

2003/04

Walsall

h

3-1

3

0

.

2003/04

Cardiff

a

0-2

4

0

Branch Grant Jensen

2004/05

Stoke

h

2-2

2

1

Duff(Y/R)

2004/05

Reading

h

0-0

1

0

.

2005/06

Derby

a

1-2

4

0

Akinbiyi Sinclair

2005/06

Reading

h

0-3

1

0

J O'Connor

2006/07

West Brom

h

3-2

5

1

Djemba-Djemba Elliott Harley

2007/08

Norwich

h

2-1

3

0

Alexander Unsworth

2007/08

Stoke

h

0-0

4

0

Mahon McCannr

2008/09

Fulham

h

1-0

1

0

.

2008/09

West Brom

h

3-1

1

0

Caldwell

2008/09

Southampton

a

2-2

7

0

Alexander Caldwell Paterson

2009/10

Hull

h

2-0

4

1

Elliott

2009/10

Fulham

h

1-0

1

0

.