Chelsea's disastrous disciplinary record: Enzo Maresca's side is thriving despite racking up the yellow cards

By the standards set for them over the past two decades, Chelsea may not be there yet, but they are certainly thereabouts. A team who looked like England's fourth best in the second half of Mauricio Pochettino's reign might now be entitled to bristle at the suggestion that is all they are. Second in the table, having given good accounts of themselves in their meetings with Liverpool and Arsenal, if it weren't for Enzo Maresca so insistently talking down his side's title chances, this might be the week to start a dialogue.

Contenders or not, the story at Stamford Bridge is for once about matters on the pitch rather than boardroom intrigue and extravagance. And when you are as good as Chelsea are, the assessment criteria change. There is relatively little so far to debate in whether Enzo Maresca is the right man for the job, whether his tactics are working and, in particular, whether this team has the strength in depth to compete across multiple fronts. Park the big existential questions about amortization. Chelsea want to be in the mix for the biggest prizes this season. What small stuff must they sweat to get there?

As they ready themselves for further hostilities at Tottenham, one flaw shines bright in Chelsea's armor. This is not a side that you would want to go into a rerun of the Battle of the Bridge. They appear to be much too ill-disciplined. 

If that might feel like a relatively subjective assessment, there are objective metrics we can put behind this. Since the start of last season, Chelsea have received 154 yellow cards, by some distance the most in the Premier League. That in itself is notable. What is remarkable is the sheer number which have come for what we might term ill-discipline. Opta classifies every booking based on the type of offence committed. 

If we group all of those that are not through defensive plays, but reflect somewhat deliberate actions by players -- the categories for these are: dissent, time wasting, excessive celebration, arguments, fighting, off the ball actions, encroachment, abusive language, entering or leaving the field of play, entering the referee's area, excessive use of the review signal, not retreating and dive -- then the picture becomes even more intriguing. Chelsea have 72 such bookings, over 30 percent more than second placed Wolves and well over the double the Premier League average.

They have the most bookings for dissent, 27 in total, the most for time wasting, the most for fighting. They aren't just fighters though, they're lovers too, leading the league for excessive celebrations. In the highly charged, emotive environment of a Premier League match, immaculate behavior is an unreasonable expectation. Brentford, however, have managed to keep themselves to 28 such offences, Manchester City and Liverpool a mere 30. Even Arsenal, whose delaying of play was a matter of such focus in the late summer, have picked up only 32 such bookings.

Enzo Maresca knows there is a fine line between a side that fights for each other and one that is overly aggressive. Speaking after his side's 1-1 draw with Nottingham Forest, where half of their fine-worthy six yellows were for indiscipline, he said: "It is something we need to improve, but, overall, I like the team the way they are fighting. I like the way they are becoming a team in these kinds of things. I don't see any problems about that.

"For sure, there are things that we can control and do better, no doubt, and probably this is one of the things [to improve]."

This then is an issue of significance, albeit one that is yet to boil over into a real crisis in any specific games. Those same disciplinary events mentioned above have so far resulted in just one red card, club captain Reece James given his marching orders in the closing stages of a 2-1 win over Brighton in May, kicking out at a combination of Joao Pedro and Carlos Baleba.

What statistics cannot capture is what might have happened if players hadn't lost their head. Might Moises Caicedo have offered a more effective shield in Chelsea's 4-1 loss to Liverpool if he hadn't been booked in the 11th minute for his furious reaction to a free kick given against him? Marc Cucurella was booked just before half time in a 5-0 loss at Arsenal back in April. For the remaining 45 minutes Arsenal went at him again and again, the Spaniard feeling unable to throw himself into a tackle on Kai Havertz as his former teammate drove in to strike the Gunners' second.

Those are examples from last season, but Chelsea are picking up these bookings with even greater frequency this year, 1.8 per game, and they are spreading them across the squad. Eight players have more than four yellows for ill-discipline since the start of last season. Cole Palmer has double that tally, third most in the league, but by far the guiltiest party is Nicolas Jackson with his 12 infractions.

A recurring theme of the striker's time at Chelsea is he gets himself booked in the most redundant ways, almost as often as he gets himself prime shots. Pochettino called Jackson in for a meeting in October 2023, little seems to have improved since then with three of his four yellows for non-footballing actions. One more and he will be banned, a big price to pay for kicking the ball away against Crystal Palace.

As to the broader why of Chelsea's disciplinary issue, Maresca certainly touched on that above. This is a young team, its average age of around 23-and-a-half the youngest in the Premier League by a sizeable margin. A degree of youthful indiscretion is to be expected, perhaps even to be celebrated if it galvanizes a squad that needs a powerful gravitational force, such is its size.

Keep it up, however, and their ill-discipline could be more of a curse than a blessing in the most intense moments of the season. And what a pity it would be if this talented young side was beaten by itself, rather than an opponent.