Which referee - slammed as ‘incompetent’ by Everton boss Frank Lampard - will be in charge of Blackpool vs Preston North End this weekend

Chris Kavanagh is the man in the middle on Saturday for the 12:30pm kick off, having refereed three Premier League games and a Europa League game in his last four games.

His game in Europe was at the home of Turkish giants Fenerbahce and he was most recently in charge of Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Leeds United at the weekend, where his red card and penalty decision against the Gunners’ defender William Saliba was overturned and resulted in a foul in favour of the Frenchman.

It is not the first time Kavanagh has hit the headlines, famously called ‘incompetent’ by Everton manager Frank Lampard in February. The Toffees boss wanted a penalty for a handball claim made against Manchester City midfielder Rodri as the ball struck the arm of the City man.

The referee on the day did not see it but Kavanagh was on VAR duty and chose not to award a penalty, leading to an impassioned response from Lampard. He received no punishment for his comments and instead Mike Riley, head of refereeing apologised to the Merseyside club.

"The decision is incredible – incredible – and that loses us the opportunity to get what we deserved,” Lampard said.

"That's a VAR call. That's Chris Kavanagh, I spoke to the referee and they know it is a penalty, the question is that is it offside and it wasn't.

"That's the reason we have VAR. It wouldn't have needed more than five seconds to know it was a penalty. He [Kavanagh] should have either told the referee to give it or told him to go look at it.

"We've lost a point because of a professional who cannot do his job right. You start searching for whys and I can't think why. It is so incompetent to get it wrong.”

It will be the 37-year-old’s seventh game of the season, and he has so far not handed out any red cards, that have stood, but has booked 24.

Last season, he took charge of one PNE game, the 1-1 draw with Fulham at Deepdale, and he did not referee a Blackpool game. He did however referee both Champions League and Nations League fixtures.