Sandro Tonali facing ban after Liverpool incident as Newcastle United midfielder ruled out for one match

Tonali was shown his fourth yellow card of the season in the Premier League when he was booked for a foul on Curtis Jones in the 58th minute of the 3-3 draw with Liverpool at St James’ Park last week. One more booking for the midfielder will see him banned for one match.

Premier League rules state that any player shown five bookings in the first 19 games of the Premier League season must serve a one-match ban. Fabian Schar and Joelinton are also just one booking away from suspension but have managed to avoid a fifth booking in each of their last five and nine matches respectively.

The £95million trio will have to avoid any further bookings in the next four Premier League matches until matchday 20 in order to avoid suspension. Defender Dan Burn has already served a ban having been booked five times and must now avoid reaching 10 yellow cards inside 32 games or else he will be suspended for two matches.

Should Tonali, Joelinton or Schar be booked against Leicester City at St James’ Park on Saturday (3pm kick-off), they will miss Newcastle’s following Premier League match at Ipswich Town the following week and not the Carabao Cup game against Brentford.

Yellow card suspensions do not carry over in different competitions however suspensions for red cards do. Sean Longstaff has only been booked twice in the Premier League so far this season but his two bookings in the Carabao Cup mean he is suspended for the quarter-final against Brentford.

Elsewhere in Newcastle’s squad, Lewis Hall must avoid another two bookings in Newcastle’s next four league games having been shown three yellow cards this season. Bruno Guimaraes, Joe Willock, Lloyd Kelly, Nick Pope and Longstaff have all been booked twice.

Jacob Murphy, Anthony Gordon and Callum Wilson all have one yellow card each and would need to be booked in every remaining league game in 2024 in order to face a suspension.

After the 19 game, five booking and one-match ban cut-off point - the threshold changes to 10 bookings, 32 games and a two-match ban. Joelinton was the last Newcastle player to be banned for two matches after accumulating 10 yellow cards during the 2022-23 campaign.

Any player shown 15 bookings over the course of the season is handed a three-match ban but no player has ever been cautioned that many times during a single Premier League campaign.