West Ham appear to have been lumbered with a card-happy referee for Friday’s Premier League clash with Wolverhampton Wanderers at the London Stadium.
Jarred Gillett has officiated the Hammers twice already this season — both against Tottenham — and as many will remember, the 29-year-old dished out a whopping eight cards when we beat Spurs back in January.
It was a chaotic game. Callum Wilson grabbed a late winner and it felt like half the Spurs defence ended up in the book by the end of it.
Gillett’s big calls last time
To be fair to him, he did get a couple of big decisions right.
The first led to Crysencio Summerville’s opener. Jarrod Bowen was taken out on the halfway line by Ben Davies in what looked a clear foul, but Gillett played advantage. Davies ended up injuring himself in the challenge and West Ham went straight up the other end to score.
The second was the handball appeal against Ollie Scarles, which was cleared after a VAR check. It looked questionable at first, but the replays backed the decision.
Not all good memories
The other game involving Gillett didn’t go quite as well.
He sent off Tomáš Souček when Spurs beat West Ham 3-0 earlier in the season. In truth, there weren’t many complaints with that one — Souček went in with his studs showing after a heavy touch and gave the referee a decision to make.
Still, given how freely the cards came out in that January game, this is definitely one to keep an eye on heading into Friday night.
But then Spurs also get the “card-happy referee”. Jarred Gillett is also an Aussie. Make of that what you will. I never liked him when he was the VAR official who gave a stupid decision against us years ago and disallowed our goal. Can’t recall at the mo which game and who ‘scored’ it. Anyway, I generally think he’s mellowed and has become one of the better referees in the Premier League. Others may beg to differ.