Premier League make Newcastle United match official decision after bizarre Chelsea incident last season
Crystal Palace v Newcastle United: The match officials have been confirmed for Newcastle’s trip to Selhurst Park.
The Premier League have confirmed the match officials for Newcastle United’s trip to Crystal Palace on Sunday (2pm kick-off).
Both sides will be looking to bounce back from disappointing defeats when they meet at Selhurst Park this weekend. Newcastle followed up a 4-1 loss at Coventry City with a 1-0 home defeat to Aston Villa while Palace were beaten 5-0 away to rivals Brighton & Hove Albion.
This weekend’s meeting will be refereed by Paul Tierney, with Simon Long and Mark Stevens as assistants. Matt Donohue has been named fourth official while Darren England is on VAR duty, assisted by Olly Mackey.
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Tierney’s last match officiating Newcastle was a 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest at the back end of the 2025/26 campaign. Harvey Barnes’ strike was cancelled out by a late goal from former Magpies Elliot Anderson at the City Ground in a match that otherwise passed without any major incidents or officiating controversy.
But Tierney’s other Newcastle match from last season sparked one of the most bizarre pre-match scenes of the campaign at Chelsea back in March.
Ahead of the game, Chelsea’s players huddled around Tierney prior to kick-off. The incident prompted criticism of Chelsea’s players while Liam Rosenior, who was the Blues’ head coach at the time, took aim for Tierney himself.
‘Respect the ball’ - Liam Rosenior
"I'm going to make it really clear,” Rosenior said after Newcastle’s 1-0 win at Stamford Bridge. “I want to protect my players. I'm respectful to the game. My players made the decision that they wanted to be around the ball, to respect the ball and show unity and leadership.
"That is not my decision. That was a decision between the leadership group and the team. There is nothing that they're doing with that huddle that is disrespectful to the opposition."
“A lot of things are being made of it. To me, it's a show of respect. It was disappointing to see the referee stood in the middle. I don't know. It's not in the rules. I don't understand.”
Rosenior added that Tierney referenced a previous incident at Arsenal, when the Chelsea boss reacted angrily to a member of the Gunners staff being in his side's half during the warm-up.
"We had a meeting with the referee, my assistant goes in, the first thing he talks about is our huddle," Rosenior added. "He says about when I complained about Arsenal being in our half, it wasn't the goalkeeper coach that was in our half.
"People were at that game at Arsenal, I said what I said. We're not being disrespectful to the opposition.
"If Paul [Tierney] had focused more on his job, which was to make the right decision, we have a penalty today. I don't think anybody in this room can say that Woltemade doesn't kick Cole Palmer down in the box.
"So let's focus on the things that are important. My team showing unity is not as important as getting the decisions right on the pitch."
The defeat to Newcastle was part of a run of five successive league defeats without scoring for Chelsea which ultimately cost Rosenior his job.