Late change of referee

It's not that long since he was here, in fact it was the last time we won at home against Norwich City. Ahead of that game I said we could expect some cards and perhaps a controversial decision. He provided both, there were three yellow cards and he also awarded us a somewhat soft looking penalty early in the game that led to Andy Gray giving us a 2-0 lead.

He refereed this particular fixture three seasons ago. On that occasion he disrupted our performance with the very harsh dismissal of Michael Duff. Ian Moore and Robbie Blake had given us a 2-0 lead, Blake's coming from the penalty spot, but Ade Akinbiyi netted twice for Stoke to earn them a point.

He's now taken his yellow card count to 62 from 18 games with 29 of them going to home team players and 33 to away team players. He's not added to his two red cards in the last few weeks.

His performance against Norwich earned him a 'Rate the Ref' rating of 79.66 and he is currently seventh out of seventeen in our table.

There are no further changes to the officials. He will be assisted by David Richardson (West Yorkshire) and Mo Matadar (Lancashire) whilst the fourth official duties will be carried out by the same referee as was the case in our last home game against Hull, that is Neil Swarbrick (Lancashire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2007/08	Norwich	h	2-1	3	0	Alexander Unsworth
2006/07	West Brom	h	3-2	5	1	Djemba-Djemba Elliott Harley
2005/06	Reading	h	0-3	1	0	J O'Connor
2005/06	Derby	a	1-2	4	0	Akinbiyi Sinclair
2004/05	Reading	h	0-0	1	0	.
2004/05	Stoke	h	2-2	2	1	Duff(2Y)
2003/04	Cardiff	a	0-2	4	0	Branch Grant Jensen
2003/04	Walsall	h	3-1	3	0	.
2002/03	Coventry	h	3-1	1	1	.
2001/02	Wimbledon	h	3-2	5	0	A Moore
2000/01	Wolves	a	0-1	2	0	Cooke Weller
1999/2000	Bristol City	a	0-0	3	0	Mullin
1998/99	Chesterfield	a	0-1	3	0	Cooke
1997/98	Brentford	h	1-1	2	0	Payton