Oliver wants even more of Burnley and Blackpool

He's refereed us on five occasions and the two Blackpool games, both at home in the 2011/12 and 2012/13 seasons, are the last two occasions he's refereed either of us in a league game although he did referee Blackpool's FA Cup exit at Everton in February 2012.

I'm never so sure what to make of Oliver. I've often said he's too susceptible to getting the big decisions wrong, a recent example being the red card shown to Tottenham's Younes Kaboul in their defeat at Chelsea, but when he referees well, as he certainly did in last season's win against Blackpool, you can see exactly why he was earmarked very quickly as a potential Premier League referee.

His first Football League game came at Mansfield in August 2007, a game the home side lost 3-1 to Lincoln. Oliver was just 22 at the time and he was still short of his 25th birthday, in January 2010, when he was allocated his first Premier League game between Fulham and Portsmouth. However,  adverse weather conditions saw the game postponed.

He had to wait until the Birmingham v Blackburn game in August 2010 when he was 25 years and 182 days old, becoming the youngest ever Premier League referee, breaking Stuart Attwell's record.

He's had a mixed bag when refereeing us. His first Burnley game, back in early 2008 against Scunthorpe, provided Owen Coyle with his first home win as Burnley manager and he had an excellent game.

Just over a year later, he'd been back twice and sent off two Burnley players. Not many of us saw the off the ball incident that saw Chris Eagles dismissed against Plymouth but he certainly got it all wrong when he dismissed Michael Duff and awarded a penalty in a televised game against Swansea.

Since, there have just been the two Blackpool games. In the first of them he could quite conceivably have sent off three Blackpool players; he should, without question, have sent off two. He did not have the best of games.

A year later and his last Burnley game saw him have a very good game as Terry Pashley's team recorded a 1-0 win.

After the shocking performance last week from Dean Whitestone, someone on the message board said that we'd have had at least two penalties with Oliver refereeing. Sometimes that's his fault, he can be too quick to give things, but he is a referee that does make decisions. Hopefully they will go our way tomorrow. 

The assistant referees are Andy Hendley (West Midlands) and Scott Ledger (South Yorkshire). The fourth official is Football League referee Mark Haywood (West Yorkshire) whose last Burnley game was the 2-0 home win against Wolves last season, Sean Dyche's first game in charge of the Clarets.

Previous Burnley Games