Stoke City are the visitors to the Stadium of Light this weekend and the man in charge of the game is referee Mike Dean.
Stoke City are the visitors to the Stadium of Light this weekend and the man in charge of the game is referee Mike Dean.
Dean was at Sunderland when they played Stoke last season in the Capital One Cup, unfortunately he brought us no luck and Stoke won the tie 2-1.
The Wirral based official has not taken charge of a Sunderland game so far this season, the last time was back in April when he officiated the Wear/Tyne derby which Sunderland won 1-0 thanks to a goal on the stroke of half time for Jermain Defoe.
Seven players were shown yellow cards that afternoon, Patrick van Aanholt, Santiago Vergini, Sebastian Larsson, Jordi Gomez and Connor Wickham all found their way into the referee’s book, as did Ryan Taylor and Jack Colback for the visitors.
So far this season Dean has been in charge of 13 games in which he has shown 47 yellow cards and four red. That means Dean is well on the way to beating last season’s tally of 158 yellows and eight reds from 38 games.
Assisting Dean on Saturday will be Darren Cann and Matthew Wilkes, while the fourth official will be Andy Woolmer.
He must wear out a few sets of cards in a season