After a festive hiatus, this renaissance of tightrope fare comes to you from a departure lounge in Vienna, proving once and for all that while we may not travel to the ends of the earth for you here at the Scout, we will at least go well out of our way to ensure we’ve got your back – even if you might be one of the seven managers who brought in Fabian Delph last week.
With nine yellow cards in just a shade over 1500 minutes of football this season, including four in eight cup appearances for Aston Villa, Delph now stands alone atop the booking charts and is the first player to taste the home comforts of the second suspension tightrope. The sanction for 10 yellow cards received prior to the second Sunday in April (or Gameweek 33 to you and me), is now set at a two-match suspension – so Delph now faces a hard task to navigate the six remaining fixtures without troubling the referee.
Further down the list on eight yellows a heavyweight triumvirate lurk in the shadows of the sidebar widget – David Luiz, Marouane Fellaini and Luis Suárez all just a couple of bookings from a ban alongside Paul Scholes, Craig Gardner, James Perch and a couple of new faces in the shape of Delph’s teammate Matthew Lowton and Chelsea’s Brazilian midfielder, Ramires.
On to the suspensions, and with West Brom’s Goran Popov set to serve the last of a three-match ban (Gameweeks 26-28) for spitting at Kyle Walker, another Eastern European import joins him this week for an act of petulance. Pavel Pogrebnyak, attractively priced at 4.4 in the Fantasy Premier League game and resident on the benches of over 200,000 teams, was unilaterally called into action this week amongst squads stretched by the excesses of Gameweek 26. The Russian’s straight red card for a kick at Maynor Figueroa and the -2pts delivered are only the tip of the painful iceberg as a three-match ban immediately ensues, taking in the testing times of Gameweeks 28, 29 and 30. There’s not many alternatives at that price I’m afraid.
** A late addition to the article comes after the FA announced they have charged Robert Huth with violent conduct in relation to an incident involving Philippe Senderos during Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Fulham. The Stoke centre-half has until 6pm this evening but now looks set to miss the following three Gameweeks against West Ham, Newcastle and West Brom.
