EPL

Chelsea players among Premier League stars one booking from a ban

Chelsea are top of the Premier League and looking more like potential champions with every passing week, but head coach Antonio Conte still has a few problems weighing on his mind.

Chief among them is the fact that with three matches left in 2016, five Blues players know that one more yellow card will see them handed an automatic one-match ban by the Football Association: Diego Costa, Pedro, N’Golo Kante, Nemanja Matic and David Luiz.

Under FA rules, any player who picks up five yellow cards before December 31 is suspended for the next domestic game. Matic, Pedro and Luiz have been booked just three times each in the Premier League this season, but a yellow card apiece in the EFL Cup also counts towards their totals.

Costa has been on the brink the longest, having picked up his fourth booking of the season in Chelsea’s 3-0 defeat to Arsenal on September 24. “He is showing his passion in the right way,” Conte has often said of his star striker’s more restrained approach in recent weeks.

Chelsea have matches against Crystal Palace, Bournemouth and Stoke City to navigate before the turn of the year, and a fifth booking for any of their key names against the Potters would be particularly galling for Conte with a trip to White Hart Lane to face rivals Tottenham as the first assignment of 2017.

Unlike in European competition, these yellow card totals are not wiped out after December 31; what happens instead is that the disciplinary limit increases to 10, with a new cut-off date of the second Sunday in April.

Any suspensions would force Conte to tweak his approach to team selection. No Premier League manager has made fewer changes this season and of the players on four yellow cards, Luiz has appeared in every one of Chelsea’s 10 consecutive Premier League victories while Costa and Kante have started every game in the competition under the Italian.

With Chelsea in such high spirits, blistering form and good health, it could well be that ill-discipline poses a bigger threat to the momentum Conte has built than any opponent the Premier League’s festive fixture list can muster.

Premier League club-by-club list of players one booking away from suspension:

AFC Bournemouth: Harry Arter, Dan Gosling

Arsenal: None

Burnley: Matthew Lowton, Jeff Hendrick, Dean Marney

Chelsea: David Luiz, Diego Costa, Nemanja Matic, N’Golo Kante, Pedro

Crystal Palace: James McArthur

Everton: None

Hull City: None

Leicester City: Robert Huth, Christian Fuchs

Liverpool: None

Manchester City: Aleksandar Kolarov

Manchester United: None