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This season 13 of the 22 games he has refereed have been in the Premiership with six in the Nationwide and three cup games. He has issued 65 yellow cards in those games, almost three per game, and four. Two of those red cards came in the same game, the Premiership game between Arsenal and Leeds in August when he also issued nine yellow cards.
The two players sent off were Lee Bowyer and Danny Mills of Leeds although they won 2-1 at Highbury. The other two to see his red card this season have been West Ham's John Moncur in their FA Cup win at Macclesfield and the Cambridge goalkeeper Lionel Perez in a 2-0 home win against Wycombe.
The nine yellows is his highest this season and twice he has kept clean sheets, in the Premiership games between Chelsea and Leicester and also Liverpool v Fulham. This season 25 of the yellow cards he has issued have gone to home team players whilst 40 have been issued to away team players.
Because of his exclusive involvement in the Premiership he has not regularly refereed Burnley games but last season he was in charge of our 1-0 win at Crystal Palace. Graham Branch and Mitchell Thomas were both shown yellow in that game.
The previous season he was the referee in our 4-3 home win against Millwall. There wasn't a single card shown in that game but I still find it hard to believe that he didn't do anything about the fact that Burnley were having to defend in front of the Millwall fans in the second half with all hell breaking loose.
He kept a clean sheet that game but as we know he is more than capable of waving yellow cards. The nine is not a record for him, in last season's Merseyside derby at Goodison Park he sent off Liverpool's Igor Biscan and also yellow carded no fewer than eleven players, six from Everton and five from Liverpool.