Premier League manager touchline bans: How yellow cards lead to suspension
- Managers can be shown yellow and red cards during Premier League matches
- The division's coaches receive a suspension after fewer bookings than their players
- Man Utd's Erik ten Hag has been a repeat offender so far in 2023/24
On Tim Sherwood's managerial debut as Tottenham Hotspur interim boss, he turned away from the field of play, spinning in one fluent twirl to unleash a tirade upon the fourth official.
Sam Allardyce, into his second decade as a top flight coach by that point, watched on from the opposite dugout as West Ham United's manager. Before letting out a meaty chuckle, he bellowed: "You're getting the hang of it!"
In the heat of a match, managers often let their emotions spill over. Unlike their players, coaches were formerly exempt from the same public punishments of yellow and red cards. Instead, they would receive a verbal caution or get sent to the stands.
However, a rule change over recent years has empowered referees to thrust a slip of lamented card towards the Premier League benches.
Here's everything you need to know about the mandate brought in to protect the league's beleaguered fourth officials and their colleagues.
When were yellow and red cards for Premier League managers introduced?
Pep Guardiola received 117 yellow cards during his playing career - roughly one every four games - and earned the dubious honour of becoming the first-ever Premier League manager to get booked during the 2019 Community Shield.
Football's global lawmakers IFAB trialled the cautions scheme in the Football League during the 2018/19 season before England's top flight followed suit that summer.
A Premier League statement at the time explained: "Managers and coaches will have to be on their best behaviour and set a good example as they can now be shown yellow and red cards for misconduct.
"Any team official deemed guilty of an offence can be cautioned or sent off.
"And if the offender cannot be identified, the card will be shown to the senior coach in the technical area, usually the manager or head coach, as the person responsible for the other team officials."
What does a Premier League manager have to do to get a yellow card?
Any act that undermines the on-pitch official or shows "a lack of respect for the game", be that sarcastically clapping or petulantly kicking a water bottle for instance, is punishable by a caution.
Leaving your technical area - each manager's dedicated patch of astroturf to pace around in front of their team's dugout - is only a yellow card offence if it grows from "occasional" to "persistent".
Anything which could be deemed as "provocative or inflammatory" is worthy of a red card.
Ahead of the 2023/24 season, IFAB introduced a new slate of actions that would earn the offending party a booking. Chief among the updated rulebook was an automatic yellow card for an overcrowded technical area. Just two people are allowed to be on their feet in this zone of influence at any one time but "only one person can stand at the front of the technical area and coach during the match".
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp singled out Newcastle United's Eddie Howe and his assistant Jason Tindall as serious offenders in this regard at the start of the campaign. "I think it is only a problem for one team," Klopp said of the new ruling. "Newcastle. Sorry!"
The amended laws also stipulated that if a manager was sent off during a game - be that for two yellow cards or a straight red - they were no longer allowed to watch the remainder of the contest from the stands.
How many yellow cards lead to a suspension for a Premier League manager?
It's three strikes and you're out for Premier League managers. After a caution in any three games across the entire league season, the offending manager will be suspended for one match. This is in contrast to the division's players, who are only banned after five yellow cards in the first half of the campaign.
In October, Arsenal's Mikel Arteta questioned the discrepancy. "We are always 'playing' as managers, so I don't know why we get three yellows and the players can have five," he asked journalists at a press conference, rather than the refereeing body PGMOL.
"We are there every minute of every game. Some players are on the bench, sometimes they are injured, but we are always there and we can only have three yellows. It's not fair, no?"
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