The Villa Match Zone

Play-Off Semi-Final Match Officials – Middlesbrough v Aston Villa

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The EFL have now announced the Match Day officials that will take charge of Aston Villa’s Play-Off first leg semi-final tie against Middlesbrough this weekend.

Steve Bruce takes the side to The Riverside Stadium this Saturday for the game against Tony Pulis’ new cloggers and we’ll be looking for a positive result to bring back to Villa Park for the second leg affair as we look to Wembley and the Final. Kick off is 5.15pm.

Referee: Robert Madley
Assistant Referees: Peter Kirkup and Harry Lennard
Fourth Official: Martin Atkinson

We now turn to Vital Villa’s resident refereeing expert sirdennis for his unique insight into the appointed Official.

“It does make me laugh when all of a sudden there is a mega important game so the powers that be think, ‘right we will appoint a Premier League referee because they are the best!!!’

“This tells me two things:

“A – Premier league referees are still incompetent buffoons who just have a greater sense of self-importance, and being on television will make this clown think that the game is all about him. Bobby Madley is useless and I really mean that.

“B – The league clearly think that the Championship referees are the worst batch ever or else they wouldn’t feel the need to appoint this bloke.

“Apologies if I appear to be ranting, it is because I am very wound up about this game and seeing the appointments has further raised my stress levels.”

If you agree with sirden on this appointment, I’ll save you the ignominy of telling you who we have been given for the home leg at this stage!

With Madley being mainly seen in the Premier League this season, he obviously hasn’t taken charge of a game involving us so far this year. That also applies to last season.

If we go back to 2015/16 though and those darker days, Madley took in our 2-2 draw with Sunderland in August, showing two of the three yellow cards to us. He also oversaw derby day victory over Birmingham in the League Cup where we saw three of four cards shown. Another derby day that year saw a draw with West Bromwich Albion where we received the solitary card on the day.

His final game in charge was the draw against Newcastle United and saw him show one of two cards to us that day.

The main take away from this is Madley likes booking Villa players. Not really the greatest of starts is it and his penchant for a booking hasn’t abated this season, even despite our lack of involvement. At the time of typing Madley has taken in 30 games this year and as well as showing five red cards, he’s also shown 103 yellow cards.

With his like for booking the Villa added to Tony Pulis’ idea of what football is, the game might be a low scoring affair but I’m guessing the disciplinary column is going to be full.

Best behaviour boys – trust me with Mike Dean next we need to walk the tightrope!

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