The SFA have today announced the referee appointments for the Scottish Cup ties this weekend.
As many will now know, Aberdeen vs Celtic will be bossed by Craig Thomson. The veteran ref will take charge of his third Aberdeen match in four weeks.
The onus will be on the Hoops to boss the match and ensure the referee doesn’t matter. But Thomson’s stats heading into Sunday are quite unusual.
First of all, Thomson goes into Sunday on a run of 24 consecutive games in which he’s booked at least one player. He’s only had one match in 26 this season where he’s failed to book someone.
Interestingly, only two of his matches this season have seen just one booking. So, certainly this term, Thomson appears to be extremely card happy. He’s now dished out a total of 72 yellow card in 26 games this season.
He’s produced 12 bookings and no red cards in Celtic matches in 2018/19. He’s only bossed four of our games, with five Celtic players booked out of those 12 yellows.
Two reds and plenty of yellows
Despite his clear willingness to dish out bookings, Thomson has only flashed two red cards this term. Not one has come in a Celtic match, although Aberdeen were guilty of one against Kilmarnock.
Thomson’s card-happy style has been the same for years. Last season, Thomson dished out 131 bookings, with 139 the season previous, and a whopping 183 in 2015/16. We’ll wait and see how lenient he is on Saturday.
Thomson did hand out three red cards last season in Celtic games. All three of them, however, came for the opposition. The Hoops haven’t had a member of their team sent off by Thomson since February 26 – a 1-1 draw at Hamilton.
So, to sum up, expect a bunch of cards this weekend if the game gets slightly aggressive. Thomson certainly isn’t afraid to get his notepad out. Hopefully, however, there are no glaring errors on his part during the match.
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