Jarred Gillett will referee Newcastle United’s game against Watford this weekend, which will signal a first in the Premier League.
Gillett is from Australia, and on Saturday he’ll become the first overseas referee to officiate a top flight game in England.
The 34-year-old has been in charge of games in the Championship over the past year, and received a lot of praise for his work with the whistle.
Now he’s making the step up to the Premier League, and Newcastle and Watford will be his guinea pigs.
It’s a decent first game for Gillett. If he was in charge of one of the ‘big six’, there’s every chance he could be bullied into making decisions.
But Watford vs Newcastle is a nice game, but an important one too.
Both sides will be desperate for three points. The Hornets will have bookmarked this game at the start of the season as one they’d like to win, while the Magpies are still looking for their first three points of the new campaign.
Interestingly, this won’t actually be Gillett’s first time refereeing Steve Bruce’s side. The Aussie was the man in the middle when Newcastle met Blackburn in the Carabao Cup last season.
Newcastle won on that occasion, with Ryan Fraser scoring the only goal of the game.
Bruce would love for that to happen again at Vicarage Road, with the manager under pressure after a tough start to the season.
After five games, his side are 18th with just two points on the board.
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