Bruno Guimaraes is at risk of missing Newcastle United’s game against Arsenal if he picks up a yellow card in either of his next two games.

Most fans of a Premier League club will be aware that as well as red-card suspensions, players can also be suspended for picking up too many yellows across the course of the season.

The rules are as follows:

• You receive a one-game ban if you pick up five yellow cards by the 19th game of the season (including the 19th game itself).
• You receive a two-game ban if you pick up 10 yellow cards by the 32nd game of the season (including the 32nd game itself).
• You receive a three-game ban if you pick up 15 yellow cards before the campaign ends.

Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes already received his one-game suspension earlier in the campaign, picking up a yellow against Arsenal to be suspended against Bournemouth.

But the midfielder is now at risk of his second ban.

After picking up yellow cards in four straight Premier League games against Luton Town, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, and Manchester City, Guimaraes made it to nine yellows across the course of the season.

If he picks up another yellow in any of his next nine games with Newcastle, he’ll then be suspended for two matches.

This is relevant to Arsenal because the Gunners face Newcastle in three games’ time.

If Guimaraes gets a yellow in Newcastle’s next game against Nottingham Forest, he’ll miss their following two games against Bournemouth and Arsenal.

If he gets a yellow in the Bournemouth game, he’ll miss Arsenal and Wolves (yellow-card suspensions don’t carry across competitions, so he would be available to face Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup).

There’s one other player who could hypothetically miss the Arsenal game with a yellow-card suspension: Anthony Gordon, who is on eight yellow cards.

But Gordon appears likely to miss Newcastle’s upcoming matches through injury anyway, so he probably won’t get the chance to be suspended.

One bizarre quirk of the yellow-card suspension rule is that yellow cards that lead to second yellows aren’t counted.

If Guimaraes picked up a yellow early in Newcastle’s next game against Forest, he would be suspended for two games and miss the Arsenal fixture.

But if he then picked up a second yellow to be sent off, he’d only receive a one-game ban, against Bournemouth.

Of course, he would still then be at risk of a two-game suspension later, as his overall count would remain at nine yellow cards. So there would be little benefit for the player or his team long-term.