Tomorrow's ref Neil Swarbrick

[nose]

Everton are a fairly physical team (or certainly used to be) and have at least one complete villain in fellani who needs to be officiated far more sternly than he customarily is.

Tomorrow's ref is Neil Swarbrick, who I can't recall being in charge of one of our games but he is from Preston in Lancashire. I would have been happier with a referee from an area a little further away from Liverpool. I am not saying he will favour them or otherwise but we do seem to get the worst end of most referees decisions (save for home to Juve when the bloke clearly leaned our way). I think this is because we are considered a less fashionable club and we try to play and conduct ourselves the right way. Mac the mouth Moyes and Everton certainly cry blue murder whenever there is a puff of wind and one of their players fall over, and I feel try to get on the backls of referees early to try and pressure them.

So in a game where the ref may well be an important factor my question is do we know is swarbrick any good?

[cmg]

I don't think much of the current bunch of PL refs, but this bloke's name didn't ring any bells so I looked him up.

Only been on the PL list three seasons and doesn't get that many games.
Total: 16 (41 yellows; 4 reds)

He's done us once before. His first ever PL game was the underwhelming 0 - 0 against Sunderland back in December 2010 when we were starting to fall out of love with the smiling and ambitious Mr Hughes.
Only Schwarzer, Hughes and Hangeland of tomorrow's likely team started that day, although Baird got on as sub. Even the introduction of a pair of Johnson's (unsurprisingly) failed to break the deadlock.
I have no recall of Mr Swarbrick's performance, though it should be noted that he did issue the game's only yellow card to the Sunderland assassin....Kieran Richardson. (Sunderland started with Danny Welbeck and Darren Bent up front.)

[Airfix]

What we need is a site where refs are rated.....

How about www.ratetheref.net?

He is currently top-rated ref in the Premier League for the current season, as shown here.

For his personal page, click here.

:airfix:

[CH FFC]

Not sure I would want a "nice" ref for tomorrow.  Look at Everton's infringement record to date, and compare it to Fulham's.  Everton have had 19 yellow and 1 red, where Fulham have had 6 yellow.  To me it is in Fulham's favor to have a more stringent ref that will call a foul.  Maybe not the best way to look at it, but this could be a big 3 points too.

If Clattenburg were on tomorrow Everton might be down to 9 by the half! 

[BestOfBrede]

Not sure I would want a "nice" ref for tomorrow.  Look at Everton's infringement record to date, and compare it to Fulham's.  Everton have had 19 yellow and 1 red, where Fulham have had 6 yellow.  To me it is in Fulham's favor to have a more stringent ref that will call a foul.  Maybe not the best way to look at it, but this could be a big 3 points too.

If Clattenburg were on tomorrow Everton might be down to 9 by the half! 

I agree, Everton are doing well and are a very good team. But! - it seems to go unnoticed that they are also a physical team that are not adverse, when things are not going their way, to using less unsavoury tactics! A good ref, without fear, would not go amiss.