So far this season, Lee Mason has refereed just two Premiership games and has issued four yellow cards and no red cards.
All four cards were shown in the same game and the bad news for Boro is that they picked up three of them! Doriva, Maccarone and Mendieta were all booked when Boro got gubbed 0-4 by Aston Villa at the
This is Mr Mason's first season of top flight refereeing and this will be his first time in charge of an Everton game.
Hopefully he'll be more Uriah Rennie than Graham ‘Liver' Poll, but the chances are he'll probably be like most of the other refs in the division. You don't really hold a grudge against them but you just don't like them on matchdays because they get things wrong and seem to give the opposition everything. But then if you ask opposition supporters what they thought of the referee they'll say exactly the same thing!
This argument does not work for Graham Poll as he clearly turned to the dark side years ago! Ditto for Phil Dowd and Mike Riley as some of the decisions they make are just plain baffling!
"You're a tiger Alan...grrrrrrrr!"
But anyway, more on Mr Mason. In addition to his two Premiership matches, he's also refereed 26 Football League games. He has issued 68 yellow and two red cards and his ratio of 2.69 cards per game is well below average for a Football League referee.
So a hat-trick of bookings for Boro and a 4-0 win for Everton will do nicely thank-you!