It was a game we were all looking forward to. It was Eddie Howe's first home league game in charge and we were hoping for a decent performance from new boy Gibbs after a shocker of a show from Ollie Langford, referee in our previous game against Doncaster.
Gibbs turned in a performance so bad that Langford's effort paled into insignificance. So bad was it that he currently sits bottom of the RATE THE REF table with a rating of just 25.42.
"Some of the decisions he made (both ways) were frankly laughable," was one of the comments on the rate the ref thread that day, along with "The worst at Turf Moor in a long, long time," and "He lost control of the game because of his own inept actions."
It's easy to say much of it centred on a challenge by Adam Drury on Tyrone Mears but his inability to spot it as a red card was just one in a series of shocking decisions that afternoon.
Someone must have taken notice because he was awarded only two more games at Championship level for the remainder of the season and tomorrow will be just his third in 12 games this season as high as the Championship.
In his 11 games this season he's yellow carded 33 players and sent off two. Of the yellow cards, 15 have gone to home players and 18 to away players. The two players he's sent off are Bournemouth's Adam Barrett in a 3-1 home defeat to Stevenage and Jabo Ibehre in MK Franchise's 3-1 defeat at Sheffield Wednesday.
His last game was Aldershot's 2-1 home defeat to Macclesfield in League Two a week ago. There were two yellow cards in that game; Carl Tremarco of Macclesfield followed by Aldershot's Jamie Collins.
Whatever happens tomorrow, Gibbs' performance just cannot be worse than the one in February.
The assistant referees tomorrow are Andy Scregg (Liverpool) and Ollie Yates (Staffordshire). The fourth official is former Football League referee Karl Evans (Lancashire) who is now back as an assistant referee.
Previous Burnley Games
Season Opponents V Res Y R Burnley Players Carded 2011/12 Norwich City h 2-1 2 0 n CarlisleSource: FOOTYMAD
