Two key Newcastle United players will be walking a tightrope in their game against Manchester United on Monday night if they are to take their place in the starting XI to visit Tottenham on Saturday.
Tottenham Hotspur know a thing or two about missing players with a big injury list and suspended stars this month including Yves Bissouma, Djed Spence and Rodrigo Bentancur. The latter has only just come off a seven-game suspension for his controversial comments about Son Heung-min in the summer when he picked up his fifth yellow card of the season in the final minutes of Sunday's draw with Wolves.
That means Bentancur will miss Saturday's home game against Newcastle. All he had to do was make it through two more minutes or so to reach the halfway cut off point of the season after 19 Premier League games when bookings are wiped off. James Maddison and the injured Micky van de Ven reached that point with four yellow cards to their name and will now not receive a ban for their next booking.
However, Newcastle are yet to play their 19th match of the season, which comes on Monday night at Old Trafford against Ruben Amorim's United side.
Eddie Howe currently has two key players hovering on the four yellow card mark - Sandro Tonali and Fabian Schar - and if either picks up a booking in Manchester then they will not be able to face Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham on Saturday.
Midfielder Tonali has been a major presence for Newcastle in the past month or so and a key figure in their resurgence, while centre-back Schar has started every game in the Premier League this season other than the two he missed early on through a red card suspension, including the visit of Spurs to St James' Park in September.
It's worth pointing out that neither Tonali nor Schar has picked up a Premier League booking in almost a month in the former's case and two months for the latter. Threadbare Tottenham might just be hoping that changes on Monday night to go some way to evening out their own absences.
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