We’re stepping up the frequency of our Suspension Tightrope articles as we approach Christmas, with the yellow cards steadily racking up for numerous Premier League players and the threat of a one-match ban looming.
There are a grand total of 29 Fantasy Premier League assets (FPL) who are now just one booking away from a ban, while four players were handed their fifth cautions of the campaign at the weekend and will miss Gameweek 16 as a consequence.
The yellow card amnesty is not until after the completion of a team’s 19th league fixture (more on that later), after which the threshold moves up from five to ten bookings.
Those FPL players who are already sitting on three and especially four cautions still have some time before they are in the clear, then.
CURRENTLY SUSPENDED
Shane Duffy (£4.2m), Sergi Canos (£5.5m) and Southampton pair Mohammed Salisu (£4.5m) and Oriol Romeu (£4.5m) are the four players who will be absent in Gameweek 16 due to yellow card accumulation.
The most notable Fantasy name from that quartet is, of course, Duffy, who still sits in over 18% of FPL squads overall and in around 10% of squads within the top 10,000.
ON FOUR YELLOW CARDS
Raphinha (£6.7m), who features in more than one in five FPL squads overall and in over 60% of the top 10k teams, joined the throng of players on four yellow cards after Gameweek 16 and is now just a booking away from a ban.
Joao Cancelo (£6.8m), Callum Wilson (£7.5m), Bruno Fernandes (£11.6m) and Conor Gallagher (£6.1m) were already walking the tightrope and managed to avoid a caution at the weekend.
There are some notable bench fodder names on the verge of unavailability, too, including Yves Bissouma (£4.4m), Josh Brownhill (£4.4m), Joel Veltman (£4.3m) and Mathias Normann (£4.5m).
ON THREE YELLOW CARDS
There’s less to sweat about if your player is on three bookings: most of them will just have to avoid picking up two bookings in the next four Gameweeks to dodge a ban.
There are 39 players in total on the above list, with owners of Michail Antonio (£7.9m), Cristiano Ronaldo (£12.3m), Bernardo Silva (£7.5m), Reece James (£6.2m) and Marcos Alonso (£5.7m) unlikely to be losing any sleep over their current disciplinary statuses.
WHEN ARE THE CUT-OFF POINTS FOR SUSPENSIONS?
As mentioned in the introduction, the yellow card threshold is raised to ten after a team’s 19th league fixture. That means following the completion of Gameweek 19 for all clubs bar Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley, whose 19th match of the campaign will now fall in Gameweek 20 following last week’s postponement.
Naturally, if there are any further postponements between now and Boxing Day, whether they be weather-related or Covid-enforced, that would affect the above.
The threshold for ten yellow cards is after 32 league matches, which will be April at the earliest.
Players collecting ten bookings before that point will serve a two-game ban.
Punishments for yellow card accumulation are competition-specific, whereas suspensions for dismissals cover all competitive matches.
