Messias is referee

Last updated : 26 December 2002 By Tony Scholes
Messias, now a Premiership referee, was last at the Turf as we were beaten 3-0 by Gillingham towards the end of our promotion season, the last time we dropped any points that season.

He kept his cards in his pocket all evening and on his only other visit to Turf Moor there were no cards either. That was the 2-1 victory over Northampton when the Clarets came back from a goal down with goals from Neil Moore and Paul Barnes. It was the day that Waddle turned on the Burnley fans after they had turned on his signing Lee Howey.

Since then Messias has taken charge of three Burnley games, all away from home, and in one of them he had a less than impressive performance. That was the 3-2 win at Norwich in our first season back in Division One. He didn’t keep his cards in his pocket that day and Gordon Armstrong, Kevin Ball, Glen Little, Paul Smith and Gareth Taylor all received yellow cards along with one Norwich player.

Last season he was the referee as we went down 5-1 at Manchester City and also for the 2-1 win at Watford. Just Dimitri Papadopoulos went into his book at Maine Road whilst Arthur Gnohere and Tony Grant saw yellow at Watford.
This season he is averaging just about 4 yellow cards per game with 59 in 15 games and there have been 4 red cards.

Of those yellow cards 26 have been given to home team players and 33 to away team players and the four players to see red have been Southampton’s Marian Pahars in a 2-0 home win against Manchester City, Nyron Nosworthy of Gillingham as they went down 4-0 at the Priestfield Stadium to Wolves and both Rufus Brevett and Steve Marlet as Fulham picked up a point in a 0-0 draw at Birmingham.

One interesting statistic for this season is that the four 1st Division games he has taken charge of there has not been a single goal scored by the home sides and all have ended in away wins. It is time for a change I would suggest.