There were 30 yellow cards flashed across the weekend’s nine fixtures but not one resulted in a suspension. With five new faces clambering aboard over Saturday and Sunday, the Tightrope now has 21 players sitting just one booking shy of a single-match ban as the busy festive period kicks in.
Chelsea’s Diego Costa, Newcastle midfielder Vurnon Anita, Southampton’s James Ward-Prowse and West Brom midfield duo Craig Gardner and James McClean were the latest additions, with the latter escaping with just a yellow for a reckless high challenge on Tottenham’s Mousa Dembele.
Discussing the incident with the press post-match, Baggies boss Tony Pulis hinted that the winger was somewhat fortunate not to be sent packing:
“It was a reckless challenge. He shouldn’t be doing things like that, it’s not allowed in the modern game and he’s got to be careful. He just sees the ball, he is one of those people that if the ball was in front of a brick wall he would throw himself in to try and win the challenge. He’s not a nasty guy, there’s none of that about him, but he has to be careful”.
As a result of the weekend activity, seven sides – Bournemouth, Newcastle, Southampton, Stoke, Spurs, Watford and West Brom – now have a couple of players apiece with four cautions to their names.
Our Tightrope protagonists still sit some way behind Norwich’s Alex Tettey, though, who leads the way on seven bookings for the season after incurring the referee’s wrath during the 2-0 loss at Watford.
Just behind Tettey, there are now four players on six yellow cards. Stoke’s Erik Pieters, Liverpool duo James Milner and Lucas and Newcastle’s Jack Colback are the men concerned, with the latter two picking up cautions this weekend.
Lucas’ yellow card means that Liverpool have now earned 33 cautions in the Premier League alone – that’s on a par with West Brom and just two behind Tottenham in top spot.
Finally, four players will be available for action this weekend after serving one-match bans. Liverpool’s Emre Can, Villa’s Ciaran Clark, West Brom’s Claudio Yacob and Palace’s Wilfried Zaha toppled off last week’s Tightrope, with Can earning his fifth yellow in the midweek cup win at Southampton. Zaha, of course, will serve his ban tomorrow night as the Eagles roll up to Everton.
This means that, at present, there are no players set to serve suspensions in Gameweek 16. Palace’s Yohan Cabaye and Everton’s James McCarthy could yet succumb to the lure of the Tightrope, though – they head into tomorrow’s match at Goodison on four bookings apiece.
Finally, reports this evening suggest that United’s Bastian Schweinsteiger could face retrospective action for an alleged elbowing incident involving West Ham’s Winston Reid at Old Trafford yesterday. It’s believed that referee Mark Clattenburg and his assistants missed the altercation, with the FA set to contact the whistler before making a decision. Marouane Fellaini is likely to escape punishment for an alleged stamp on James Tomkins during the goalless draw.
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