It may seem a little mundane in the light of the more headline-grabbing disciplinary matters this week, but the sheer number of games at this time of year means that cards and suspensions come along at a rate of knots, so keeping on top of them can give you the edge you may need over your rivals.
Peering through the mists created by the Luis Suarez decision, you will have seen that Kyle Naughton disappeared from our suspension tightrope on Tuesday night and was bundled away into the isolation of a one-match ban. However, as tweeted and picked up in the Scout Notes yesterday morning – this suspension will be served against parent club Spurs, in a match he would have missed anyway due to his loan arrangement. Replacing Naughton on the Suspension Tightrope this morning will be Fabricio Coloccini. The Newcastle skipper earned his fourth yellow card of the season for a foul on Peter Odemwingie late on in the loss to West Brom and will face a one-game suspension if he is booked in either of the next two games against Bolton or Liverpool.
In addition to Coloccini, Fulham defender Chris Baird and Liverpool striker Craig Bellamy also received their fourth cautions in last night’s games. Baird joins the massed ranks from Fulham for a foul on Danny Welbeck after 62 mins of the comprehensive defeat to Manchester United, with Bellamy the sole Liverpool representative thanks to a show of dissent in the 0-0 draw with Wigan. They, too, will now run the two-game gauntlet until the criteria is extended to 10 yellows before a ban kicks in.
Next up, in the dying stages of Aston Villa’s defeat to Arsenal last night, Villa’s ex-Spurs full-back Alan Hutton was sent off for 2 yellow cards in the space of 80 injury time seconds to earn a (slightly) early bath. His first, for a show of dissent after 92 minutes, was quickly followed by the second, for a rash tackle on Thomas Vermaelen. He’ll now be missing for the Boxing Day clash at Stoke.
And finally, we are trying to clear up a little confusion surrounding Wolves defender Richard Stearman. Avid readers of these pages may remember, that having appeared on the tightrope in Gameweek Fourteen, Stearman was duly removed following an update to the Opta stats that saw him return to 3 bookings. However, through discussion with The FA, we’ve learned that their disciplinary department have him recorded with 4 bookings: presumably meaning that a fifth will still incur their wrath. We’ve therefore added him back to our tightrope for now until this can be clarified further.
GAMEWEEK 18 BANS
- Alan Hutton (Aston Villa) – 1 Red for 2 Yellows (1 match)
- Dan Gosling (Newcastle) – 1 Red for serious foul play (Last of 3 matches)
- Kyle Naughton (Norwich) – 5 Yellows (1 match)
SUSPENSION TIGHTROPE – FOUR BOOKINGS
- Mikel Arteta (Arsenal)
- Stiliyan Petrov (Aston Villa)
- Míchel Salgado (Blackburn)
- Nigel Reo-Coker (Bolton)
- Paul Robinson (Bolton)
- Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
- Raul Meireles (Chelsea)
- Ramires (Chelsea)
- Chris Baird (Fulham)
- Moussa Dembélé (Fulham)
- Brede Hangeland (Fulham)
- Danny Murphy (Fulham)
- Steve Sidwell (Fulham)
- Craig Bellamy (Liverpool)
- Fabricio Coloccini (Newcastle)
- Glenn Whelan (Stoke)
- Scott Parker (Tottenham)
- Steven Reid (West Brom)
- Paul Scharner (West Brom)
- Richard Stearman (Wolves)
