Mike Jones of Chester will referee the first Liverpool game of his career as we travel to The Stadium of Light to play Sunderland.

Mike is one of the youngest and newest Premiership referees and Saturday's game will be his eighteenth top flight match.
He started refereeing as a 15-year old and is now into his eighteenth season blowing the whistle. Even though this is only his second season as a Premiership referee, he has already received some plum appointments including the 1997 Conference League Cup Final, the 2007 League Two Play-Off final and more recently last season's FA Trophy Final.

His first Premiership appointment was in August last season when Wigan Athletic ruined Hull City's day with a 5-0 win at the KC Stadium. He went on to referee another 11 top-flight games last campaign.

This season he has refereed five games, including Sunderland's 1-0 defeat at Stoke City at the end of August. He has also refereed at The Stadium of Light before, back in April 2007 when he was in charge of Sunderland's 2-1 win against Queens Park Rangers in The Championship.

His assistants are Andy Newbold and Robert Madeley with Neil Swarbrick as the fourth official.