Friend makes quick Turf Moor return
Just a day after Chris Kavanagh was announced as the newest Premier League referee, it is the more familiar Kevin Friend who will be in charge at Turf Moor tonight for our game against Stoke City.
The headline suggests he’s been here recently. It is over seven weeks ago but he refereed our last home game prior to the Spurs fixture, taking charge of the Chelsea game prior to our run of away fixtures.
Tonight will be the third time he’s refereed us this season with the other our away defeat at White Hart Lane against Spurs in December when he failed to send off Moussa Sissoko who seconds later set up the Spurs’ winner.
But it was the first of the three games he’s refereed since our game against Chelsea that won him all the headlines and all for the wrong reasons. While we were making our way to Swansea, he was in charge of the Manchester United v Bournemouth game and failed to take action against both the stamping Tyrone Mings and the elbowing Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He did send off Andrew Surman for two yellow cards but initially didn’t send him off.
He was demoted and his only two games since have been in the Football League, one in League One at Bury and last Saturday in the Championship when he refereed the game between Barnsley and Sheffield Wednesday at Oakwell.
There were seven yellow cards in that game. Barnsley had all of Marc Roberts, Angus MacDonald, Adam Hammill and Ryan Kent carded alongside Sheffield Wednesday’s Jack Hunt, Adam Reach and Sam Winnall.
That took Friend’s card count into three figures this season with 104 yellow and two red cards. Of those yellow cards, 50 have gone to home team players with 54 to away team players.
Kevin Friend is currently 11th in RATE THE REF with a rating of 64.68 out of 100. He’ll be under scrutiny tonight on his return to the Premier League.
The assistant referees are Harry Lennard (East Sussex) and Derek Eaton (Gloucestershire). The fourth official is Anthony Taylor (Wythenshawe) whose last Burnley game was our defeat at Swansea.
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 |
| 2016/17 | Chelsea | h | 1-1 | 5 | 0 | Y: Westwood, Lowton, Barton |
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