Newcastle United players Voice up As Their tasted victory on Sunday

The Newcastle United players tasted victory on Sunday.

Not just any old victory either, all kinds of records broken as the Sheffield United keeper picked the ball out of the back of his net eight (EIGHT!) times.

Great viewing for those of us watching on TV and especially the Newcastle United fans in the away end.

However, there is one other significant positive to emerge from this Bramall Lane game, which I haven’t seen mentioned at all.

Newcastle United setting a new record for this season as well, the first game of 2023/24 when not a single yellow card was given to one of Eddie Howe’s players!

In the final 14 Premier League matches of the 2022/23 season, Newcastle players were awarded 15 yellow cards.

In the first five PL games this season, there had already been 17 (SEVENTEEN!) Newcastle United bookings!

The situation getting so bad, so quickly, that Sunday’s man of the match Anthony Gordon would already have been picking up a one match suspension if he’d picked up a fifth yellow card of the season against Sheffield United.

You might say that when a victory is as emphatic as this one was, it is easy to not pick up yellow cards.

However, there were some shocking challenges put in by Sheffield United players, especially the one on Sean Longstaff, which could have easily seen cheap and stupid bookings for Newcastle players retaliating.

So many of these bookings so far for Newcastle United have been daft and unnecessary, leading to NUFC heading into last weekend with the most yellow cards of any Premier League club.

So this is how the 2023/24 Premier League leaderboard for Newcastle United players now looks when it comes to yellow cards, thankfully unchanged after Sunday:

4 Gordon

3 Bruno

2 Tonali

1 Joelinton, Barnes, Botman, Lascelles, Trippier, Schar, Targett, Wilson

So already 17 yellow cards in the opening five Premier League matches and the breakdown is (in brackets how many bookings the opposition received) Villa 4 (4), Man City 4 (1), Liverpool 1 (2), Brighton 4 (4), Brentford 3 (5), Sheffield United 0 (4).

These were the final totals last season for the Newcastle United players…

The 2022/23 Premier League leaderboard for Newcastle United players and yellow cards:

12 Joelinton
6 Bruno Guimaraes
6 Fabian Schar
5 Kieran Trippier
5 Dan Burn
4 Jamaal Lascelles
4 Callum Wilson
3 Alexander Isak
3 Nick Pope
2 Sean Longstaff
2 Sven Botman
2 Miggy Almiron
1 Anthony Gordon (plus 6 for Everton last season before joining NUFC)
1 Allan Saint-Maximin
1 Ryan Fraser
1 Matt Targett
1 Joe Willock

Last season, a total of 59 yellow cards in the 38 Premier League matches, but already seventeen in the opening six games.

At this average, we would be looking at 108 yellow cards over 38 matches this season, nearly double last season’s total!

The new rules certainly appear to have helped increase the number of yellow cards, not just at Newcastle. As evidenced by the fact that whilst NUFC have picked up 17 yellow cards, in the same six matches the opposition have totalled 20 now.

The way things look, suspensions for these Newcastle United players are looking inevitable, just a case of how many (suspensions) and how soon?

For midfielders and defenders in particular, putting in tackles / challenges is key to their game. Not an awful lot Eddie Howe can do about that. Though no doubt he will be impressing on his players not to give any daft needless bookings away.

Anthony Gordon has been Newcastle’s best player this season but to be sitting on four bookings already and only one away from a one game suspension, when it is only late September, is ridiculous.

Bruno already on three, Tonali has two, suspensions are looking all but inevitable for these Newcastle United players and potentially / probably others, unless something changes. Hopefully Sunday was a positive sign that things could be changing, a bit more discipline from the NUFC squad.

According to the Premier League rules, any player picking up five bookings from their side’s first 19 Premier League matches will serve a one match ban in the same competition.

Then looking beyond this, players who end up with 10 yellow cards in Premier League matches, up to and including their team’s 32nd fixture, will serve a two match suspension in the competition.

Joelinton picked up these bans last season, missing three Premier League matches due to his 12 cards.