The Suspension Tightrope Returns

Five Gameweeks into the season, we felt it was time to add our regular Suspension Tightrope widget.

This is now available under the Watchlist rankings in your right sidebars or via the slide-in menu on mobile and tablet.

For those unfamiliar, the Tightrope keeps a tally of cards accrued from all domestic matches across the Carabao Cup, FA Cup and Premier League fixtures.

The table is updated after each Gameweek, and we aim to share the Fantasy implications of the latest yellows and reds collected in articles like the one you are reading now.

We’ll bring you news of all the latest suspensions, along with updates of the yellow card totals of the most regular perpetrators as they edge towards a domestic ban and clamber onto the ‘Suspension Tightrope’.

Crucially this season, it appears that the FA have changed the curfew rules for accumulating five and ten yellow cards.

Previously, players had to avoid collecting five domestic bookings before New Year’s Day, when the “tightrope” was extended to 10 cautions. They then had to get to the second Sunday of April and avoid receiving a two-match ban for 10 cards.

However, presumably to make this fairer for teams who played more matches before those curfew dates, the FA now specify the following in this season’s handbook.

A Player accumulating five cautions will be automatically suspended for one first-team competitive match if he has accumulated those five cautions in (up to and including) the number of matches in the relevant League as set out in the table below:

A Player accumulating ten cautions will be automatically suspended for two FTCM if he has accumulated those ten cautions in (up to and including) the number of matches in the relevant League as set out in the table below:

This effectively means that, regardless of when their fixtures fall, players have to avoid five bookings over their team’s first 19 Premier League matches and ten bookings over the first 32 matches.

In Fantasy terms, this means that Gameweek 19 – on December 23 – is currently the curfew for five yellow cards. Gameweek 32 on March 31 would be the second curfew, although, for some teams, that will be disrupted by postponements around that period.

The FA Cup Quarter Finals fall in Gameweek 31 currently, while the final of the Carabao Cup will take place in Gameweek 28. Those teams involved in either of those will face a postponed fixture and, therefore, their players will have a curfew for 10 cards extended.

I have contacted the FA for clarification of this.

As it stands, already two players are just one yellow away from a single-match suspension and look destined to serve a ban unless they can somehow navigate another 13 Gameweeks without a caution.

Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon and West Ham United’s Pablo Zabaleta are those two players. Both have received four Premier League bookings and were understandably omitted from last night’s Carabao Cup ties with that in mind.

That pair walk the tightrope against Manchester City and Spurs in Gameweek 6.

Below them we have eight players on three bookings and these include another Palace player – Christian Benteke. A suspension for him would be a major blow given their lack of options up front.

Newcastle United’s Matt Ritchie is perhaps the key asset in that list. He’s produced four assists so far this season and has earned over 93,000 new owners ahead of Gameweek 6. Pick up a yellow card at Brighton on Sunday and he will be just a single caution from an untimely one-match ban.

Of course, throughout this article we will also update you on existing bans and their progress.

Chelsea’s David Luiz is our article’s poster boy, having been the latest to be served with a suspension. A three-match ban has him sit out tonight’s Carabao Cup clash with Nottingham Forest along with Gameweek 6-7 encounters with Stoke City and Manchester City.

Elsewhere, Liverpool’s Sadio Mane, along with Newcastle’s Aleksandar Mitrovic and Miguel Britos of Watford can all make returns after Gameweek 6, having served out their own three-match suspensions.