Who is Michael Oliver, the referee for the Manchester City vs Arsenal Premier League title clash?

It was all looking so, so promising for Arsenal. At one stage at the end of January, Mikel Arteta’s side were five points clear of Manchester City with a game in hand. Now, with just a few weeks of the campaign remaining, they still possess the same lead but have played two games more.

Both teams head into Wednesday’s clash at the Etihad knowing that if they win all of their remaining league games, they will be crowned Premier League champions. The difficulty for the Gunners is that they have lost all of the last seven meetings between the teams and haven’t won at the Etihad since January 2015. On top of that, they face an opponent who have won four of the last five titles and know exactly what it takes to get over the line.

Michael Oliver: the youngest ever Premier League referee

The referee for the do-or-die Manchester match-up will be a familiar face to many. Michael Oliver become the youngest ever referee in a Premier League match when he took charge of Birmingham City vs Blackburn Rovers at the age of 25 years and 182 days old, a record which still stands. Since then, he has gone on to officiate a total of 344 matches in the English top flight.

Real Madrid vs Juventus Champions League controversy

Oliver has subsequently made a name for himself on the international stage, featuring in the group stages of the Champions League for the first time in 2016-17. The following season, he was the man in the middle for the controversial quarter-final second leg between Real Madrid and Juventus, awarding the Spaniards a tie-deciding penalty and sending off legendary goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon for his protests after the Italians had come back from 3-0 down in the first leg in Turin to level the scores.

In more recent times, Oliver oversaw the 2021 FA Cup final between Chelsea and Leicester City, as well as the 2022 UEFA Super Cup, in which Madrid took on Eintracht Frankfurt. He was also selected to officiate at the 2020 European Championships and the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.

Michael Oliver stats

Only Paul Tierney (27) has taken charge of more Premier League games than Oliver (25) this season, while Graham Scott is the only one of 22 referees to have shown fewer yellow cards per fixture (2.96). Oliver ranks in the middle section of the table for almost every other metric, including fouls per game, penalties awarded per game and red cards per game (he has only shown one, to Aston Villa’s Douglas Luiz away to Fulham).

In May 2009, Oliver refereed the League One play-off final at Wembley, 24 hours after his father Clive had officiated the League Two play-off final at the same stadium. And just last week, he took charge of Al Nassr vs Al Hilal in the Saudi Pro League, showing Cristiano Ronaldo a yellow card for dragging an opponent to the ground in a headlock.