The referee who officiated a controversial Albion defeat has been selected for the match against Newcastle United this weekend.

Stuart Attwell is the referee for Saturday’s 5.30pm kick off.

He was also the referee in the controversial 2-1 defeat against Spurs on April 8 where Albion received an apology from PGMOL for not giving a penalty after Kaoru Mitoma was tripped in the second half.

The VAR Michael Salisbury did not intervene and Harry Kane won the game nine minutes later.

There were four other big calls in that match which included two disallowed goals for Albion.

The Argus: Stuart Atwell is the referee this weekendStuart Atwell is the referee this weekend

Mitoma had a goal ruled out for handball, as did Alexis Mac Allister.

Brighton had two more penalty appeals waved away against Clement Lenglet, one for handball and another for a shirt pull on Lewis Dunk.

Pundits Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy described it as “complete incompetence”.

It was the third apology Brighton received from January to April. The other two were the VAR error for Estupinan’s goal against Palace in February and the other was for not sending off Fabinho in the FA Cup tie in January.

Head coach Roberto De Zerbi was also sent off along with Tottenham’s interim manager Cristian Stellini after an incident between both team’s staff.

Attwell’s last match was the 3-2 home win for Manchester United against Nottingham Forest which saw Joe Worrall sent off for the visitors.

Craig Pawson is the fourth official for the match.

The Argus: Albion players after the defeat against SpursAlbion players after the defeat against Spurs (Image: Simon Dack)

He was the referee for Albion’s FA Cup semi final defeat on penalties against Manchester United on April 23.

Darren Bond is the VAR for the game.

He was the referee for Brighton’s 2-0 win against Bournemouth on April 4.

Albion fell to a 3-1 defeat last Saturday against West Ham.

Newcastle are coming off the back of a 2-1 defeat at home to ten man Liverpool.

Eddie Howe’s side were sucker punched by substitute Darwin Nunez.

Referee: Stuart Attwell. Assistants: Constantine Hatzidakis, James Mainwaring. Fourth official: Craig Pawson. VAR: Darren Bond. Assistant VAR: Ian Hussin.