Historically, Chelsea’s disciplinary problems have been poor under current ownership as they break records for yellow cards and they are bottom of the combined Fair Play table since 2022-23 . <\/p>\n
In 22-23, Chelsea accumulated 86 points in the Fair Play table (sixth-most in the Premier League) and in 23-24 they had 117 under former manager Mauricio Pochettino, including a Premier League record 105 yellow cards. <\/p>\n
That was followed by a 106-point season under Maresca to finish second-bottom in the table. <\/p>\n
A total of 301 yellow cards is the most in the Premier League over three years. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 12 red cards place Chelsea second behind Wolves (13) over the same period. <\/p>\n
Under Maresca, Chelsea are a team that look to control games through possession and clever pressing, but it is notable to break down what Chelsea have received bookings for since 2022-23: <\/p>\n
Tactical fouls: 89 (highest in the Premier League)<\/p>\n
Reckless offenses: 89 (second, behind Crystal Palace)<\/p>\n
Dissent\/arguments: 67 (highest)<\/p>\n
Time-wasting: 38 (second, behind Aston Villa)<\/p>\n
Diving: Seven (highest)<\/p>\n
Excessive celebration: Four<\/p>\n
A total of 113 of their 301 yellow cards have come in the final 15 minutes of matches. <\/p>\n
In that time Chelsea have had 15 cards for dissent (fourth most), 10 for arguments (joint-third most) and two for simulation (joint-most). <\/p>\n
The trend of yellow cards, 2.8 per game under Pochettino and 2.6 under Maresca, highlights that it could be more than a tactical issue and may be linked to how a youthful squad built under Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital handle their emotions.<\/p>\n
The average age of the Chelsea squad is just over 24 years of age and, on Saturday, Maresca named the youngest XI in the Premier League so far this season. <\/p>\n
The question now is whether Maresca can resolve the issue? His low-hanging fruit would be to ensure his players get fewer bookings for dissent and poor behaviour on the pitch. <\/p>\n
It may take Chelsea simply becoming a better team to avoid receiving bookings for reckless offences and tactical fouls while the squad may naturally mature over time as they build their experience together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Historically, Chelsea’s disciplinary problems have been poor under current ownership as they break records for yellow cards and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[403,99],"class_list":["post-234704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}