Liverpool have a couple of players walking a disciplinary tightrope with Premier League and Champions League participation under threat
Ibrahima Konate will run the risk of an untimely suspension for Liverpool in their New Year’s Day clash at home to Leeds United on Thursday evening. Bookings in successive recent games against Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur earlier this month have moved Konate on to four yellow cards in the Premier League this season – one short of an automatic one-game suspension.
However, the centre-back only has to negotiate the next match to then sidestep the immediate threat of a ban through the accumulative procedure.
Players who accrue five bookings inside the opening 19 Premier League games are handed a one-match suspension. The amnesty then changes to a two-match ban for reaching 10 bookings inside 32 games, and a three-game suspension for totalling 15 at any point in the campaign.
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Should Konate be booked in Liverpool’s 19th Premier League game of the season against Leeds, he would therefore miss next Sunday’s visit to Fulham, leaving Reds boss Arne Slot with a potential headache at centre-back with doubts over Joe Gomez’s fitness, Wataru Endo absent and Giovanni Leoni ruled out for the season.
Conor Bradley and Dominik Szoboszlai have each already served a one-match suspension for reaching five bookings, the latter missing Saturday’s 2-1 home win over Wolves as a consequence.
Bradley, along with Curtis Jones, is also on the brink of a suspension in the Champions League having been booked twice in the first six games of the league stage of the competition.
UEFA rules dictate three bookings along with every second booking after reaching that threshold – meaning the fifth, seventh, ninth and so on – will result in a one-match suspension.
The amnesty for yellow cards only comes into force until after the quarter-finals have been completed, meaning Bradley and Jones have potentially another eight games – the remaining two group matches, along with both legs of possible play-off, round of 16 and last eight clashes – before the bookings are no longer counted.
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