The good and bad of Michael Oliver

He had an outstanding in January last year when we beat Scunthorpe 2-0 and he scored over 90 in our Rate the Ref. But his performance at the beginning of this season, the 0-0 draw with Plymouth, was nothing like that standard and he was somewhat fortunate to score as highly as he did.

He seemed to get a lot of good press last season but in this second season there have been a number of games where controversial decisions have been highlighted. He's still in his early 20s but looks to be earmarked for a move up to the Premier League in the very near future, much like Stuart Attwell.

This season he's refereed 21 games. In those games he's given out 56 yellow cards and three red cards. The first of those reds was our own Chris Eagles in the Plymouth game, a decision made for him by his assistant.

The others to see red are Northampton's Giles Coke in a 1-1 FA Cup draw at Leeds and Gary Doherty of Norwich in a game they won 2-1 at Nottingham Forest. Of those yellow cards 23 have gone to home team players and 33 to away team players.

He's certainly capable of refereeing well and he's fit enough to keep up with the game, unlike Trevor Kettle in our last league game. Hopefully we'll get a game similar to the one from last season.

He will be assisted by Colin Harwood (Greater Manchester) and Jock Waugh (South Yorkshire) with fourth official duties in the hands of Football League referee Graham Salisbury (Lancashire).

Previous Burnley games:

Season	Opps	V	Res	Y	R	Burnley players carded
a
2007/08	Scunthorpe	h	2-0	2	0	.
2008/09	Plymouth	h	0-0	2	1	Eagles(Y+R)