If you’ve been soaking up the plentiful Scout Tweets or pouring over our daily Scout Scribbles, then you’ll have seen the various snippets of disciplinary news over the last few days. With the completion of the Carling Cup quarter finals, this is a good chance for a round up.
First into the dock in this update is our new best (or worst?) friend Stephen N’Zonzi. The Blackburn midfielder may have thought he’d escaped Saturday’s bruising encounter at the Britannia unpunished, but while his flailing elbows were missed by referee Mark Halsey, the FA panel have stepped in to ensure some retribution is dished out in the form of a 3 match ban. The first of these was served in Tuesday night’s cup tie, so two more games to go means he’ll sit out the fixtures in gameweeks 14 and 15 (SWA, sun).
With N’Zonzi now sidelined and Lucas a doubt with a scan due on his knee, Blackburn’s Jason Lowe has drawn level with the pair on six yellow cards, having picked up a booking in the cup loss against Cardiff. Elsewhere in the cup games, there was a fourth yellow card for David Luiz (for a dive, no less) which adds him to our tightrope list for the weekend games. There was also a case of mistaken identity in that game which saw Ryan Bertrand pick up a card for a foul by Romelu Lukaku- we’ll keep an eye on whether this gets reassigned or not. Neither player is anywhere near a ban though, so no immediate effect.
One face no longer part of the suspension tightrope is Richard Stearman. A yellow card wrongly attributed to him by the Press Association in the gameweek 4 fixture against Spurs had been reviewed and removed- Stearman now sits on 3 yellows to date.
GAMEWEEK 14 BANS
- Stephen N’Zonzi (Blackburn) – FA Charge (Second of 3 matches)
- David Wheater (Bolton) – 1 Red for serious foul play (First of 4 matches)
- Jonas Gutierrez (Newcastle) – 1 Red for 2 bookings (1 match)
- Antolin Alcaraz (Wigan) – FA Charge (1 remaining match)
- Karl Henry (Wolves) – 5 Yellows (1 match)
SUSPENSION TIGHTROPE – FOUR BOOKINGS
- Gabby Agbonlahor (Aston Villa)
- Stiliyan Petrov (Aston Villa)
- Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
- David Luiz (Chelsea)
- Brede Hangeland (Fulham)
- Steve Sidwell (Fulham)
- Yohan Cabaye (Newcastle)
- Ryan Shawcross (Stoke)
- Glenn Whelan (Stoke)
- Lee Cattermole (Sunderland)
