Ipswich Town: EFL yellow card rules with Sam Morsy one away from ban

The captain, who has been in excellent form of late and scored the winner at MK Dons on Saturday, has been on nine League One bookings since the draw at Cambridge on February 4, with one more triggering a two-match suspension. 

FA rules see players punished with a one-match ban for picking up five yellow cards, with the deadline for that long passed, meaning the next suspension milestone is for 10 bookings. 

The deadline for that is game 37, meaning the Town skipper must navigate four more matches and reach the end of Ipswich’s home game with Shrewsbury on March 18 in order to escape a ban.

Sam Morsy celebrates his goal against MK Dons on Saturday (Image: Pagepix) 

Once game 37 has passed, any player reaching 15 yellows before the end of the regular season will be banned for three matches.  

Morsy has picked up 28 yellow cards in his 75 Ipswich Town games, at a rate of one booking every two-and-a-half matches, but is currently on a run of four games without a booking and went seven without a card in December and January. 

He went 11 games without a booking during his 2019/20 season with Wigan and 14 League One games during the 2017/18 campaign, which ended with the Latics winning the title. 

Picking up a yellow card in either of Ipswich’s next two home games, against Burton and Accrington, would rule Morsy out of the trip to Bolton Wanderers on March 11. If he was carded in game 37, against Shrewsbury, he would miss the games at Barnsley and Derby County. 

Sam Morsy is shown a yellow card against Derby earlier in the season (Image: Archant)

Discussing his yellow card situation, ahead of the recent clash with Sheffield Wednesday, Morsy said: “This is a big game but it won’t make any difference to how I go into it.  

“At Wigan I was in a similar situation and I went about 15 games without picking up another yellow. It’s the last of my worries.  

“I’ll just play my natural game and control what I can control. That’s all I can do.” 

There are no other Ipswich players in real danger of picking up a suspension for 10 yellow cards, with Wes Burns on six, Luke Woolfenden on five a cluster of players on four cautions for the season.