Atkinson to referee Reebok clash

That day we were denied two blatant penalties in the second half although on both occasions it was probably the assistant who made the mistake in not seeing the fouls, but even so it led to the then Burnley manager having strong words with the referee at the final whistle.

There were three yellow cards that day with Joey Gudjonsson the only Burnley player to be booked. Atkinson has certainly been busy with that yellow card this season and last week he took his total into three figures in just his 25^th game of the season and incredibly in his last game - Stoke v Arsenal in the FA Cup two days ago - he didn't use his cards at all.

Of those yellow cards, 23 have come in five Champions League games leaving him with 81 yellows in the twenty domestic games. They've been evenly distributed with 40 going to home team players and 41 to away team players.

When reporting ahead of the Wolves game I said his last red card was at the Turf when he sent off Reading central defender Andre Bikey in last season's play off semi-final. That's no longer the case; Atkinson issued his first red card of this season last week when he sent off Blackburn's Chris Samba in their goal crazy Carling Cup defeat at Aston Villa.

Tonight will be his first Bolton game since December 2008 when he took charge of their home game against Portsmouth.

He will be assisted by Dave Bryan (Lincolnshire) and Jeremy Simpson (Lancashire) whilst the fourth official will be Football League referee Nigel Miller (Co. Durham) who we last saw ruining our game at Barnsley last season.(Wythenshawe).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2004/05	Crewe	a	1-1	1	0	Whittingham
2004/05	Sheffield Utd	a	1-2	2	0	Cahill
2006/07	Norwich	h	2-0	2	0	Caldwell
2008/09	Tottenham	a	1-4	1	0	Duff
2008/09	Reading	h	1-0	1	1	.
2009/10	Wolves	a	0-2	3	0	Gudjonsson