Reece James has pushed back against the idea that Chelsea are suffering a wider disciplinary collapse after a sequence of dismissals in recent fixtures.<\/p>\n
Each of Chelsea\u2019s last four games has included a red card, with the run of sendings also involving manager Enzo Maresca. The Blues have finished with 10 players in five of their last six outings across all competitions, a run that has intensified scrutiny of the squad\u2019s temperament.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult, if you look at all of them, they\u2019re all very different,\u201d James said. \u201cThey\u2019re not all straight reds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was next to [Gusto] when I saw him going for the tackle, and it was a split second in it. He was there to win the ball, and just mistimed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it is a problem for us. We have to accept it. This is what\u2019s happened in the past few games, but it\u2019s not something that will continue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chelsea are the only team in the Premier League to have been shown more than one red card so far this season, a record that has pushed them to the bottom of the division\u2019s Fair Play standings. The club\u2019s broader disciplinary record reaches back beyond the current campaign; since the arrival of the new ownership in 2022 the side have experienced persistent issues. The 2023\u201324 campaign under Mauricio Pochettino produced a total of 105 yellow cards, and the side accrued 301 yellow cards across the past three seasons.<\/p>\n
Critics have pointed to the average age of the squad amid suggestions the group lack experience. The Blues lineup against Forest was the youngest on average in the Premier League this season.<\/p>\n
Maresca has already brushed off suggestions of a systemic problem and has promised to analyse each of Chelsea\u2019s recent dismissals. He has emphasised there have been no examples of violent conduct and that many of the red cards have arisen from split-second decisions rather than premeditated aggression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reece James rejects claims of a discipline crisis at Chelsea after red cards in recent matches seen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,969],"tags":[1006,1089],"class_list":["post-3932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-premier-league","tag-captaincy","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}