The first of today's two live Barclay's Premier League matches took place at Villa Park where Aston Villa entertained a struggling West Ham United side.
Mike Jones was appointed to take charge of this game and to be honest initially I wasn't sure whether or not it was a good appointment.
Jones was added to the Premier League list last season and in all honesty really hasn't impressed me at all, however today I was pleasantly surprised.
I thought he controlled the game extremely well, and even though the game was poor, he did what he had to do brilliantly.
My concern with Mike Jones so far this season has been his man management skills. Before today he had shown 36 yellow cards in 10 Premier League matches, some of those bookings could have been prevented had his man management been better. So when Kovac was booked in the first half for a very soft foul I did fear the worst, but i was proved wrong.
Kovcac probably should have been sent off. The Czech midfielder, already on a yellow card committed what looked like the easiest of bookings, however Jones decided to give him a reprieve and I for one was glad of this.
The match wasn't bad tempered up until that point so Mike decided to give Kovac his final warning with captain Matthew Upson as a witness, good man management by the referee and good decision making from Hammers manager Zola who substituted Kovac shortly after.
Midway through the second half there was an unsavoury incident between Petrov and Stanislas after a bad tackle from the West Ham player. Both men went head to head like rutting stags, Jones calmed the situation down, got word in his ear from his assistant Scott Ledger and decided to book both players. Again good man management from Jones and did well after that incident to prevent the game from boiling over.
One final decision to give praise for. Stephen Child, who was the assistant at the centre of the offside controversy at St Andrews last week between Birmingham and Manchester United, rightly gave Gabby Agbonlahor offside after the striker latched onto a Robert Green error. The decision looked tight but the linesman got it right.
Before the match I wasn't very optimistic about the appointment of Mike Jones, but after seeing the 42 year old's performance today, it appears as though he has got over the beachball incident at the Stadium of Light and I for one would not be disappointed to watch him take charge of another televised game in the near future.
Verdict: Very Good 8/10
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