Football manager Neil Warnock says the impending retirement of stalwart Premier League referee Mike Dean is “10 years too late.”
Dean has refereed 553 Premier League fixtures across a 20-year spell, and has given out more cards than any other official in the three-decade history of the division, but is reported to be bringing his on-field refereeing career to an end at the culmination of the 2021/22 campaign.
The 53-year-old is the most experienced official in the top flight this season, and has also refereed the finals of the FA Cup, League Cup, and Community Shield. Over the years Dean has become known for the flamboyancy of his on-pitch showmanship, including scoffing at dissenting players and elaborate points at the spot when indicating a penalty.
In 2020 he even appeared as a guest on the BBC’s That Peter Crouch Podcast to discuss his notoriety, but former Middlesbrough and Cardiff City boss Warnock is not his biggest fan.
“[It's] ten years too late!,” Warnock joked onTalkSport. “That's the problem, it's not going to help me, is it? I haven’t got time to go through the [decisions] he’s given me over the years, but don’t forget I’m always with a little club so Mike, like some of the other referees, tends to go with the bigger clubs.
“He almost does things in a game to put himself out there when he doesn’t have to. ‘A good referee was never seen’ my dad used to say to me, and he could referee like that, but he always has to do that extra bit for some reason to get himself in the limelight.”
Warnock believes that Dean’s penchant for pizzazz is a blotch against his refereeing, which he otherwise rates highly.
“Overall he’s a very good referee. He’s as good as anything. He has great games and I look at him and think that he doesn’t have to do what he does. He knows everything about [refereeing], but he just gets carried away.”
Dean may well continue to be involved with refereeing in some capacity, including work with the referees’ body PGMOL and potentially as a video assistant referee. Warnock says he would love to watch footage of Dean making VAR decisions on TV in real-time.
“It’d be lovely for me to watch him from afar with all of these other managers in the studio. I’d recommend it. If Mike Dean did it they’d probably change the VAR so that they’ve got a television camera on him all the way through the judgement!”
