Newcastle United official decision made by Premier League after Crystal Palace & Liverpool controversy

The Premier League match officials have been confirmed for Newcastle United v Luton Town on Saturday afternoon (3pm kick-off) at St James' Park.

Tom Bramall will referee the match on Tyneside as The Magpies look to make it back-to-back league wins following Tuesday night's impressive 3-1 victory at Aston Villa. It will be the second Newcastle match Bramall has officiated this season after he took charge of the 2-0 win over Burnley back in September.

The match saw Miguel Almiron give United the lead before Bramall awarded a second half penalty that was converted by Alexander Isak. Prior to that, the referee was subject to some criticism following his decision to send off Liverpool midfielder Alexis Mac Allister during a 3-1 win over AFC Bournemouth back in August

"I understand 100% how it looks for a ref in that moment, but when you see it back, it is the inside of the foot and no power behind it," Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp said at the time. "It is not ruthless, it is just a mis-hit of the ball and then a slight hit to the shin of the other player.

"We saw harsher challenges which were not a red card, and this shouldn't have been. I don't know exactly what we have to do, but we should talk about it again."

Bramall will be assisted by Mat Wilkes and Mark Scholes with Oli Langford as fourth official. Michael Salisbury will be the VAR for the match, assisted by Akil Howson Salisbury was at the centre of one of the most controversial VAR decisions from last season involving Newcastle. In September 2022, Newcastle thought they'd opened the scoring against Crystal Palace with Tyrick Mitchell putting the ball into his own net.

But a VAR intervention from Lee Mason prompted Salisbury to rule out the goal due to a foul by Joe Willock on Palace goalkeeper Vicente Guaita. Replays showed that Willock was pushed into Guaita by Mitchell and PGMOL later released a statement suggesting an error was made.

The match ended 0-0 and Mason was dropped for subsequent game weeks while Salisbury was moved to VAR duty, a role he has continued on a regular basis this season.