The 146th Tyne-Wear derby between Newcastle United and Sunderland will take place at St James’ Park this weekend and the referee has been selected for the occasion.
Mike Dean will officiate the match, which will be his second derby in a week after refereeing the game between Arsenal and Tottenham at the Emirates last weekend and a video is doing the rounds that shows Dean jumping for joy for Spurs.
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Mike Dean has refereed two Newcastle Premier League matches so far this season. The first one was at the Britannia Stadium as Stoke hosted the Magpies. Dean awarded Stoke a soft penalty, before evening things up by giving Newcastle the same and allowing Demba Ba to complete his hat-trick.
Somewhat worryingly Dean also gave a penalty against Newcastle when they hosted Chelsea, but perhaps even worse, failed to send David Luiz off when he brought down Ba who was through on goal. Let’s hope that Dean doesn’t make it a hat-trick of penalties against Newcastle when Sunderland visit St James’ Park on Sunday.
However, Mike Dean has been hitting the headlines this week for his apparent support of Spurs in their defeat to Arsenal. Here is Dean on the right of the screen jumping for joy as Louis Saha nets the opener for Tottenham…
I think Newcastle are more than due a good decision from Mike Dean and hopefully he’ll give some home decisions on Sunday.
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Click on the image below to see the Top 5 Newcastle goals vs Sunderland
It actually looks like he’s trying to see the ball.
You call that celebrating??