It is a lot of cards – Joelinton


 
 
 
 
 
 

Joelinton has had an interesting season so far.

The midfielder scoring a cool classy goal that gave 10 man Newcastle United an opening day victory over Southampton, the Brazilian man of the match.

In the next home game pass of the highest quality from his own half set up the winning goal against Tottenham.

However, the other side of his game has seen a VERY combative Joelinton in the opening seven Premier League matches.

After picking up four bookings in his last five Premier League matches, the midfielder would have already been looking at a one match suspension if he’d added a fifth of the season against Everton.

Despite a very feisty clash between the two sides, Joelinton managed to get through it without another card and is now free to face Brighton.

The Brazil international asked about his disciplinary record this season by BBC Newcastle:

“It is a lot of yellow cards [already this season].

“It is about me controlling myself better on the pitch.

“Being more calm.

“Not taking away the way I play… but being more calm with the ref and not giving away the easy free-kicks.

“Against Everton I controlled better myself.

“I was pleased not to get a yellow card.”

In the 2022/23 season, Joelinton picked up two suspensions, a one match ban for reaching five yellow cards in the first 19 Premier League games of the season. Then a two match ban when reaching 10 yellows in the opening 32 PL games of that season.

At one point it looked inevitable he would pick up a third ban that season for another three matches, which is triggered by 15 bookings in a PL season. Thankfully he reined it in a bit and that was avoided, still not bad going though to pick up 12 yellows in that 2022/23 Premier League season from 30 starts and two sub appearances.

Last season it was ‘only’ six yellows in the Premier League but Joelinton actually kept up the previous season’s average of bookings per PL starts. Injury meant only 15 league starts in 2023/24 and five sub appearances. In reality, almost certainly only the injuries led to Joelinton avoiding a ban due to yellow cards last season.

With another 12 Premier League games to go this season before five yellows doesn’t bring a one match ban, it looks unlikely Joelinton will avoid it this time.

He needs to take inspiration from Bruno Guimaraes. Last season Bruno picked up a one game ban after reaching five yellows with one against Arsenal at the start of November 2023, then four bookings in four matches took him to nine when getting a yellow against Man City on 13 January 2024. Yet with so many other players missing, especially midfielders, including Joelinton… Bruno had a word with himself an unbelievably the next four months saw him not get a single further booking, in any competitive match.

In the 2022/23 season, Newcastle United players collectively picked up 59 yellow cards in the Premier League.

In 2023/24, that increased to 77 yellows, with the Premier League/PGMOL cracking down on various offences.

With 17 already this season for the NUFC players it doesn’t look promising, as if they continued their current average per match, it would mean 92 yellows across the 38 PL matches and inevitably that would equal a number of suspensions.

Last season, Eddie Howe lost both Bruno and Anthony Gordon to arguably very needless suspensions, the last thing he will want this season is missing more key players due to this.

However, last season saw Newcastle United players pick up 17 yellows in the first five PL matches, that calmed down to then see 60 in the next 33 PL games.

After seven Premier League matches this season, this is how the yellow card ‘leaderboard’ currently looks:

4 Joelinton

3 Burn

2 Schar, Bruno, Hall

1 Longstaff, Kelly, Tonali, Jacob Murphy

Sometimes bookings are inevitable in the modern game but Eddie Howe’s frustration will be if he sees the likes of Bruno, Gordon and Joelinton picking up daft yellow cards at times, when they are/were so unnecessary.