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The Football Association have been forced to name a new referee for Manchester United and Manchester City’s Community Shield match on Saturday.
The FA Cup winners will take on the Premier League winners in the English season’s traditional curtain raiser at Wembley on Saturday at 3pm UK time.
The Red Devils will be hoping to add to their record of winning the shield 21 times and it is their first appearance since beating Leicester City 2-1 in 2016.
According to The Mirror, the match was scheduled to be officiated by John Brooks “but he has suffered a minor injury and has now been removed from the fixture” with Jarred Gillett now replacing him.
“Gillett was initially set to be the fourth official for the match, but has now been promoted due to Brooks’ injury. Sam Barrott has replaced him as the fourth official, while Adrian Holmes and Nick Greenhalgh will be Gillett’s assistants.”
The 37 year old refereed for nine years in the Australian A-League before moving to England in 2019.
United’s results were far from impressive when Gillett was in charge of their games last season.
The Red Devils were embarrassed 4-0 against Crystal Palace, 3-1 at home to Brighton and suffered a controversial 4-3 loss to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge when the Londoners were awarded a last-gasp penalty.
He was also in charge of the dramatic 4-3 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers when Kobbie Mainoo scored a world-class solo effort to seal the three points.
Controversially he was on VAR duty last September when United lost 3-1 to Arsenal as an 88th minute Alejandro Garnacho goal was chalked off for the most marginal of offsides that would have given United a 2-1 lead so late in the game.
In addition, The Daily Express report that he was a boyhood Liverpool fan, so had to sign a document outlining that he could not referee any of their matches, hardly endearing himself to United fans.
United will certainly be hoping that the match in two days time will be more positive than their experiences with the newly appointed referee were last season.
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