Chelsea vs Tottenham Card Tips, Predictions

In the first of our two card bet builders for the match between Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur on Thursday night we are going to go with a serial offender double which begins with the Uruguay international Rodrigo Bentancur.

In a midfield which is likely to be congested with the Tottenham high line squeezing the pitch, combined with some technical players in the opposition, Bentancur looks a solid option to be shown a card.

He has picked up a card in four of his last seven matches for Tottenham and he was also booked for Uruguay during the international break.

He has seven Premier League cards in total so he is no stranger to having his name taken and in what could turn out to be a feisty London derby with the players on show, it would be a surprise to nobody if referee Craig Pawson is brandishing him a card.

The disciplinary record of Bentancur is pretty bad but Moises Caicedo has it covered and the Chelsea man looks a prime option to be carded in this match.

The Ecuador international will operate at the base of the Chelsea midfield where the likes of James Maddison and the pacy inverted wide players will be doing their thing and as Chelsea send men forward a slip up from the former Brighton man against the counter would be an obvious route to a booking.

Caicedo is prone to diving into challenges though and it wouldn’t need much to get one wrong in the heightened atmosphere of this particular fixture.

Pawson hasn’t refereed Chelsea this season but he did show Caicedo a card away to Aston Villa in one of the two matches he refereed them in last term.

Caicedo has nine yellow cards in 29 appearances in the Premier League and this looks a good opportunity for him to fall foul of the ref again.

In the second of the card doubles for the Chelsea vs Tottenham match we’ll go with some potential situational matchups which could lead to bookings coming along.

The first of those is for the Chelsea left-back Marc Cucurella to be shown a card. The Spaniard is actually on an extended run of 17 Premier League games without a yellow card but with Dejan Kulusevski still out injured he is likely to be in direct opposition to Brennan Johnson, whose pace can cause problems.

Even on this long run without a card, Cucurella still has six yellows and a red in the Premier League this term so he is anything but squeaky clean and he can be found out a touch defensively against pace.

Johnson averages a nudge under a foul per 90 in the Premier League and in behind Johnson you have Pedro Porro who loves to get forward and he also gets fouled just under once per 90 so there should be enough chances for Cucurella to end his yellow card drought here.

Down the same side as Cucurella we are likely to see Pedro Neto doing his thing so he is going to have the same matchup issues that his teammate has, which is interesting from a card point of view.

Despite being an attacker, Neto has seven yellow cards in the Premier League this season so he can be a bit rash when going in for challenges. He isn’t someone who enjoys tracking back so if he can commit a tactical foul to avoid having to do it he will.

If you watch Chelsea you will notice that the Portugal international can be a real moaner at times too, especially when he doesn’t think he is getting what he deserves in terms of protection from the referee.

If Neto comes in off his wing he could face Cristian Romero who won’t short change him when it comes to challenges either, and there is always simulation in play too, so doubling Neto up with Cucurella, who also likes a word to the referee, feels like it could pay dividends.