|
Riley really did steal the show at Derby in January of last year. He started quietly and then built up his performance into something of a crescendo in the second half with dismissals for both managers and then incredibly Eric Djemba-Djemba for something and nothing.
He's having another heavy season with his yellow card but the red one has only appeared twice. In 30 games he's handed out no fewer than 98 yellow cards and I wouldn't bet against him reaching three figures tonight. Of those, 39 have gone to home team players and 59 to away team players.
His heaviest game in terms of cards was the Carling Cup tie between Blackburn and Arsenal. There were no fewer than eight yellows and a red that night and one of the players carded was Mark Randall. Interestingly he doesn't appear to use his cards as much in European competition and two of his clean sheets this season have come in Champions League games, AC Milan v Benfica and CSKA Moscow v Inter Milan.
He'll dominate, we'll know he's there, and there's every chance he'll want to take centre stage at some point in the game. But he's not Whitestone, and we should be thankful for that.
Tonight's assistant referees are Phil Sharp (Herefordshire) and Peter Kirkup (Northamptonshire) whilst the fourth official is young Newcastle referee Michael Oliver who had such an outstanding game at Burnley recently against Scunthorpe and currently lies second in our 'Rate the Ref' table.
Previous Burnley games:
Season | Opps | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley players carded |
a | ||||||
1999/2000 | Derby | a | 1-0 | 4 | 0 | Armstrong Cook Thomas |
2000/01 | Stockport | h | 2-1 | 3 | 0 | . |
2006/07 | Derby | a | 0-1 | 6 | 1 | D-Djemba(Y/R) Foster Harley Mahon |