The Suspension Tightrope – Misery Loves Kompany

The third round of the FA cup was gearing up to be an exceptionally quiet one for disciplinary matters – until Sunday’s events at the Etihad stadium. Fortunately for this writer, a combination of Vincent Kompany’s two-footed challenge on Nani and Chris Foy’s interpretation of the “tackle”, resulted in a controversial red card and gave us plenty to discuss…

As summarised in the Scout Notes, the City captain was given the crimson flash just 12-minutes into the game and, pending appeal, he is currently in line for an augmented four match absence (by virtue of his previous red card in Gameweek 10), missing Premier League fixtures in gameweeks 21 and 22 (wig, TOT) as well as both legs of the Carling Cup Semi final against Liverpool.

City’s appeal will be heard prior to Wednesday’s first leg with Liverpool and, with Roberto Mancini confident of a reprieve, that could yet see Kompany available for the trip to Wigan this weekend. Many Fantasy Premier League managers aren’t taking any chances though – already sales of the top ranked FPL defender have been flooding through, with over 28,000 transfers out so far in the Gameweek.

In addition to the headline maker, there were also yellow cards on Sunday for two men on our Suspension Tightrope widget, as both Chelsea defender John Terry and Sunderland midfielder Lee Cattermole boosted their tallies with bookings in the wins over Portsmouth and Peterborough respectively. Terry now sits tied with Blackburn’s Jason Lowe at the top of the bad boy list with eight bookings, potentially just a couple of games from a two-match ban. Cattermole meanwhile, nestles in just behind with seven – alongside the familiar faces of recently banned Gary Caldwell and the currently banned Joey Barton. Talking of Barton, as Tweeted earlier today, he will now miss just one league game for Rangers – this weekend’s trip to his former club Newcastle. Barton will make his return in Gameweek 22, having served the final match of his three-match ban in the FA Cup replay with MK Dons on Tuesday next week.

There’s one last nugget of disciplinary news to round up from the last week. Following an investigation on the grounds of mistaken identity, the yellow card shown to Thomas Vermaelen in the New Years Eve defeat of QPR has now been reassigned to his fellow centre-back, Laurent Koscielny. Unfortunately for Fantasy owners of the Belgian (and luckily for the French fanciers), the FPL Gameweek has long since closed so the erroneous booking will still stand. However, neither are in any immediate danger of accumulating enough yellows for a ban, with Koscielny now on four and Vermaelen on two.

GAMEWEEK 21 BANS

• Luis Suàrez (LIV) – FA charge (fourth of 8 matches)
• Vincent Kompany (MCI) – 1 Red for serious foul play (second of 4 matches)
• Joey Barton (QPR) – 1 Red for serious foul play (second of 3 matches)