Chelsea will be without Pedro Neto for the Premier League meeting with Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge as the winger serves a one-match ban. The suspension follows his dismissal in the club\u2019s match against Arsenal on Sunday 1 March.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeto has been given a one-match suspension and a \u00a370,000 fine for misconduct that occurred after he was sent off in Chelsea\u2019s Premier League match against Arsenal on Sunday 1 March,\u201d the FA said in a statement, via The Athletic. \u201cIt was alleged that the player acted in an improper manner by failing to leave the pitch promptly and\/or using abusive words towards the match official\/s following his dismissal in the 70th minute. Neto subsequently admitted the charge against him. An independent Regulatory Commission imposed these sanctions following a hearing, and the written reasons for its decisions will be published in due course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neto will miss a second straight Premier League game through suspension, but his disciplinary concerns extend into Europe. He is under investigation by UEFA after he pushed a ball boy late in Chelsea\u2019s 5\u20132 defeat against Paris Saint-Germain in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. Neto faced no immediate sanction during the match and showed remorse afterwards, giving the ball boy his shirt and apologising.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to apologize to the ball boy. I already spoke to him\u201d Neto told TNT Sports after the match. \u201cWe were losing and in the emotion of the game I wanted to get the ball fast and I gave him a little push. I\u2019m not like this. It was in the heat of the moment and I want to apologize. I gave him my shirt. I\u2019m really sorry about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
UEFA has opened disciplinary proceedings that could rule Neto out of Tuesday\u2019s second leg, where Chelsea must overturn a two-goal deficit.<\/p>\n
Asked about the incident ahead of the Newcastle match, Chelsea manager Liam Rosenior offered a candid assessment. \u201cI\u2019ve seen the incident back now and it doesn\u2019t look good,\u201d Rosenior said. \u201cI understand Pedro\u2019s perspective. He wants to get the ball back in play as quickly as possible. He wants to win for the club. There are ways you go about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I was so impressed with was for him, and it was his idea, to apologize straight away. Like I\u2019ve just said, whether it\u2019s a goalkeeper, whether it\u2019s me as a manager or a player, we make mistakes. It\u2019s about learning from those mistakes and making sure they don\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neto was one of Chelsea\u2019s best performers in Paris and a potential UEFA suspension would further complicate the club\u2019s attempts to salvage the tie. Chelsea\u2019s options on the wings are already limited: Jamie Gittens and Brazilian wonderkid Est\u00eav\u00e3o have been sidelined for a month with hamstring injuries. Gittens has returned to training and could be available for selection, but it may be too early for him to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Neto faces a one-match domestic suspension and UEFA probe ahead of Chelsea’s Champions League return<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8443,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1505,1047,1089],"class_list":["post-8444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-accountability","tag-champions-league","tag-chelsea-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8444","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=8444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}