Cole Palmer Will Play for Chelsea on Saturday and Miss the Liverpool Cup Tie Instead
Cole Palmer will be available for Chelsea's Premier League match against Manchester United on Saturday, even though he was sent off in the club's last league game. His one-match ban falls on Wednesday night instead, when Chelsea play away at Liverpool in the EFL Cup, the domestic cup competition.
The dismissal came in the second half of Chelsea's defeat by Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge. Palmer was shown two yellow cards. A yellow is a caution, and two in one match brings a red card, which means the player must leave the pitch. BBC Sport reports that his first booking came for an off-the-ball incident involving Mateus Fernandes. The second came for a foul on Conor Gallagher.
The timing of the ban is the part that surprises many fans. A red card suspension is served across England's domestic competitions, not only the one where the card was shown. That means the next domestic game in which Palmer is eligible to be banned is the cup tie at Liverpool, not the league match at Stamford Bridge. Players who pick up several yellow cards across a season are banned in the competition where those cautions were received, a separate rule that does not apply here.
For Palmer, the red card was the first of his senior career. For Chelsea, it was a more unusual milestone. ESPN notes that the club has now been shown 100 red cards, making it only the third team in history to reach that number.
Palmer has since apologised for his part in the match. Yahoo Sports carried his response, in which he admitted the performance was not good enough. Chelsea's manager will now have a choice to make about who fills the gap at Liverpool, while Palmer can expect to be in the squad for the Manchester United game.
For supporters, the practical picture is simple. Palmer misses one cup match, and then he is back for the league. Missing a single game is a short punishment, but a red card still changes a squad's plans for a week, and a cup tie away from home is never a game a club can take lightly.
