After hearing SC is as keen as me on analysing the refs before the game and how my analysis has led to 2 accurate predictions out of 2 for penalties to be awarded during the Huddersfield and Bristol matches. I thought I'd do a midweek special for the Stoke match.
So our ref of the day is Andre Marriner. That is good in a number of respects, even though he has trouble identifying a straight line for offsides. We need to be careful or some offside tonk (he is from the West Midlands) will get a winner against us.
First of all his name on Andre so he will naturally favour our Ayew and our Andre will get special consideration and protection, resulting in many free kicks in our favour. Secondly as he is a Marriner, he will feel comfortable by the sea in Swansea and have a natural bias in our favour as we are Swans.
Being slightly more prosaic he normally refs in the PL and doesnt slum it in the Championship very often, generally he doesnt give as many freekicks as most refs so expect the match to flow more, unfortunately Connor's well known inner ear problem will probably get less freekicks than normal. Generally he doesnt issue many yellow cards (about 2 per match) or red cards (about 1 even 12 matches). Its the same for penalties last season about 1 in 12 matches.
However, and this is a big however, it may be down to rule changes or VAR but of his stats the only one that has changed this season, is awarding penalties. Here is the bad news, he is averaging one penalty per match so far this season.
Sad to say therefore I am predicting another penalty to be awarded tomorrow.
One final point Andre is a cricketing aficionardo and learnt some of his rules from his knowledge of cricket, therefore in case I havent mentioned it: he has difficulty distinguishing his off-side from his on-side!