Chelsea have been under disciplinary radar throughout the season as they have been punished twice for the accumulation of yellow card.
So again, do Chelsea have a disciplinary problem? After the match on Sunday between Chelsea and Nottingham Forest at the Stamford Bridge, the blues have been punished for accumulating so many yellow cards. Chelsea were awarded six yellow cards and fined a significant amount after the match. This is for the second time they have been penalized for disciplinary reasons. The earlier one was just before the previous international break against Bournemouth. Now let’s have a detailed look into the stats and reasons for the issue.
THE STATS
Chelsea are once again under the scope of disciplinary reasons. The Blues have already accumulated 27 yellow cards in the Premier League this season. This is just the domestic league stats, if we take all competitions the number could rise. Now looking into the stats of the previous season, we can also see that this is not a new problem.
Chelsea players picked up 105 yellow cards in the 2023/24 Premier League season with the majority of them being for dissent. This is an unwanted record to their name now. They surpassed the previous record of 101 held by Leeds United.
Wesley Fofana and Marc Cucurella have become the first players to receive 5 yellow cards this season. Just remember that it has only been matchday 7 in the Premier League. That is a yellow card in every other match. Astonishing stats coming from Chelsea. Both the players are set to miss their next encounter with league leaders Liverpool. That is one bad impact of ill-discipline on the pitch. Maresca will miss two starters for such a huge match at Anfield. Anyway, thanks to their squad depth they also have multiple replacement options.
THE REASON FOR YELLOW CARDS
As per Nizzar Kinsella of BBC Sports, maturity of the players might be a factor. Chelsea have one of the youngest squads in the Premier League with players mostly immature and aggressive. Former manager Mauricio Pochettino has already sighted problems in picking up yellow cards for ‘silly’ reasons. Nicolas Jackson picked up 10 yellow cards last season which is rare for a forward player. As per the stats only one of the ten are for foul, the rest are for dissent.
Club captain Reece James picked up two red cards despite playing only a meager amount of time last season. The immature nature of players might be a reason for these disciplinary reasons. With the experience of Thiago Silva gone the number might even rise this year. We are already seeing glimpses of that. The bad effect as we said will be players missing out matches. Chelsea have already been punished twice in the space of seven matches. First against Bournemouth where both teams were punished for accumulation of a record 14 yellows in a single PL match.
Now again in their match against Nottingham Forest, the blues picked up six yellow cards and were fined 50,000 pounds. During the final minutes of the game players from both sides entered into a brawl. Anyway if this trend continues Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) might take severe actions against the Chelsea team. They might also impose strict rules which could hamper their progression.
MARESCA STAYS POSITIVE?
While Pochettino was against the yellow card problem. Enzo Maresca saw the positive side of the issue. When asked about the issue the Italian said “I am not going to pay it!”.
Maresca added: “It’s something we need to improve but overall, I like the team the way they are fighting. I like the way they are becoming a team in these kinds of things. I don’t see any problems about that.”
It is clear that Chelsea manager likes the fighting spirit his players are exhibiting. There is a valid point in what he says, because why do you fight for something? It’s because you have this feeling to achieve something. The feeling of belonging, the feeling of one’s own, the ego of players. That is something a team should have. We have seen players taking cards for the team.
The other side of the issue is that you are going to lose players for picking up more yellow cards. So, picking up cards for unwanted reasons like dissent, late free kicks and time wasting can cause you damage sometimes.
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