Friend back at Turf Moor
Burnley’s home game against Chelsea tomorrow will be refereed by Kevin Friend who will be in charge at Turf Moor for the first time since the Preston game in December 2015.
He’s since refereed two of our away games. As we were closing in on promotion, he refereed the return game at Preston and this season, just before Christmas, was in charge of the 2-1 defeat at Tottenham.
The assistant referees are Darren Cann (Norfolk) and Mark Scholes (Buckinghamshire). The fourth official is Bobby Madley (Ossett) who refereed our 1-0 defeat at West Ham in December.
Generally, he had a decent enough game at White Hart Lane but his failure to send off Tottenham’s Moussa Sissoko, opting only to show a yellow for a high tackle on Stephen Ward, ultimately cost Burnley when Sissoko set up the home side’s winner just seconds later.
It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise; Friend has only sent off one player this season and that is Chelsea’s John Terry in their FA Cup win against Peterborough. Incredibly Chelsea appealed the card, correctly the appeal was thrown out.
Chelsea claimed his foot slipped but the three man commission, led by former Burnley loan player Gareth Farrelly, unanimously disagreed with Chelsea and fully supported the referee.
To add to that, he’s handed out a total of 83 yellow cards in 23 games with 39 of them going to home team players and 44 to away team players.
Over the years we haven’t had too many problems although he did miss those two clear penalties at Leeds at the start of last season to add to his clear misreading of the Sissoko challenge.
His last game came a week ago today when he was in charge of the West Brom v Stoke game in the Premier League. There were two yellow cards per side. They were West Brom’s Ben Foster and Matt Phillips with Bruno Martin Indi and Marko Arnautovic from Stoke.
Kevin Friend is currently 12th in RATE THE REF with a rating of 62.67 out of 100.
Previous Burnley Games – Kevin Friend
| Season | Opponents | V | Res | Y | R | Burnley Players Carded |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2004/05 | West Ham | h | 0-1 | 3 | 0 | Y: Camara |
| 2006/07 | Wolves | a | 1-2 | 2 | 0 | Y: Duff, Gudjonsson |
| 2007/08 | Watford | a | 2-1 | 1 | 0 | Y: Akinbiyi |
| 2007/08 | QPR | a | 4-2 | 1 | 0 | Y: Varga |
| 2007/08 | Crystal Palace | a | 0-5 | 1 | 1 | Y: Alexander R: Carlisle |
| 2008/09 | Reading | a | 1-3 | 4 | 1 | Y: Caldwell, Jordan, Paterson R: Jordan |
| 2008/09 | Norwich | a | 1-1 | 1 | 0 | Y: Duff |
| 2009/10 | Birmingham | h | 2-1 | 3 | 0 | |
| 2010/11 | Preston | h | 4-3 | 4 | 1 | Y: Elliott |
| 2014/15 | West Ham | h | 1-3 | 1 | 0 | |
| 2014/15 | Manchester City | a | 2-2 | 5 | 0 | Y: Mee |
| 2014/15 | Manchester United | a | 1-3 | 7 | 0 | Y: Kightly, Mee, Arfield |
| 2015/16 | Leeds | a | 1-1 | 3 | 0 | Y: Arfield, Kightly |
| 2015/16 | Preston | h | 0-2 | 5 | 0 | Y: Barton, Lowton |
| 2015/16 | Preston | a | 1-0 | 8 | 0 | Y: Marney, Lowton, Gray, Barton, Mee |
| 2016/17 | Tottenham | a | 1-2 | 3 | 0 | Y: Barnes, Lowton |
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