The Cards Column Tips: Home (Park) is where the cards are

The Cards Column is back for the first time in 2025 after an extended Christmas/New Year break following last weekend’s FA Cup games. 

Matt Kirby has continued to collect the data and has picked out some of his favourite cards and booking point angles as league football returns. He’s identified some interesting angles across the Premier League, Championship and League One. 

• Plymouth vs QPR: Over 2 second-half cards
• Newcastle vs Bournemouth: Ryan Christie To Be Booked
• Stevenage vs Wigan: 20+ booking points each

Odds via bet365 and Skybet as of 21:00, January 16th. Odds may now differ.

Referee Appointments in the Premier League, Championship, League One and Two: Two noteworthy Anthony’s & a Webb Yorkshire derby

Anthony Backhouse gets things underway on Friday night in the Championship when promotion rivals Burnley and Sunderland clash at Turf Moor. Sunday’s second-tier Yorkshire derby between Leeds and Sheff Wed has the safe David Webb in charge, and it’s live on ITV.

In the top flight, Anthony Taylor is at the City Ground for Nottingham Forest vs Southampton. The whistler will be fresh from his fourth blank of the season in midweek. Andy Madley has leaders Liverpool’s trip to Brentford. 

Jeremy Simpson had a busy first half in League Two last Saturday, which included a red card. He oversees Chesterfield’s trip to Grimsby. Elsewhere, it’s Port Vale vs Newport. The Exiles finished the reverse fixture with nine men. The referee that day was Stephen Parkinson and he’s in the middle once again when the sides collide at Vale Park.

If you’d like to see the data charts, check out Matt’s X/Twitter page – @m_kirby95. It’s got all the referee data for domestic games, plus there’ll also be Champions League data shared for the upcoming games. 

Plymouth vs QPR: 007: Live And Let Show Second-Half Cards

England, Championship, Saturday, January 18th, 12:30 (UK)

When it comes to making these picks, a lot revolves around any eye-catching numbers from the data sheets. One figure that stood out this weekend was that Darren Bond averages 3.9 cards in the second half. 

007 finds himself at Home Park where bottom-of-the-table Plymouth welcome a resurgent QPR. The Pilgrims drew their first game under new boss Miron Muslic in midweek but they’ll need to get on with the game if they want to climb out of the dreaded drop zone. 

This season, Plymouth average 1.92 yellows per home game, while QPR collect 2.33 per away game. That’s around a 4.25 card mark we can expect. But with that in mind, along with Bond’s second-half average, I’m leaning towards some late chaos. 

If you open the Bet365 Bet Builder cards tab and flick to the second half, you’ll see that over two is priced at 1.91. 

The numbers above paint a strong picture, but there’s one thing that I love about this. Bond has shown 3+ second-half cards in 11 of his 12 league games! That’s a near 92% strike rate for a bet, just shy of even-money. 

Just to show his numbers, here are the matches Bond has taken charge of with their second-half card total:

Fulham vs Leicester: 4
Man City vs Brentford: 3
Millwall vs Preston: 5
Leicester vs Bournemouth: 4
Crystal Palace vs Spurs: 5
Brentford vs Bournemouth: 5
Coventry vs Sheff Utd: 5
Spurs vs Fulham: 3
Aston Villa vs Southampton: 4
Cardiff vs Sheff Utd: 2
Liverpool vs Leicester: 3
Fulham vs Ipswich: 4 

With those numbers, it’s hard to look past over two second-half cards. What also helps is some of QPR’s recent games. The R’s had three men booked after half-time of their last away league game at Norwich. 

On Boxing Day, Marti Cifuentes’ side visited Swansea and that game saw three second-half cards. While on New Year’s Day, there were six after the break in QPR vs Watford. 

Meanwhile, turn the clock back to August’s meeting, Plymouth finished with nine men, in a game that had four yellows and a red after half-time.

That’s only a small sample of QPR’s recent games, but this is all about Bond, Darren Bond, who has a licence to thrill, and show second-half cards! 

• Selection: Over 2 second-half cards (TRACKED BET)
• Best Odds: 1.91
• Bookmaker: bet365
• Stake: 7/10

Ryan Christie To Be Booked

England, Premier League, Saturday, January 18th, 12:30 (UK)

Sometimes you just look at a match and identify players that could enter the referee’s notebook. Then, there’s the small matter of the price being right. This one is more than right, it looks huge!

Ryan Christie is Bournemouth’s most-cautioned player in the Premier League this season (7). Only Leicester’s Boubakary Soumare and Fulham’s Sasa Lukic (both 8) have collected more.

On top of that, the combative midfielder ranks third within the Cherries ranks for fouls (33) – and that’s only one behind Lewis Cook. 

The Scottish international will find himself up against this in-form Newcastle side containing Joelinton and Bruno Guimaraes, which makes this the perfect storm for cards.

With Christie’s yellow card tally, I was expecting to see his name quite early in the list of players to be booked. How wrong was I? 

Only Kepa and Luis Sinisterra are priced bigger than Christie with Sky Bet to be booked. Make it make sense!

You cannot ignore the 6.0 quotes for a card, especially with his last five league games seeing him commit foul counts of 2, 2, 2, 2, & 5. And he’s seen yellow in recent trips to west London against Fulham and Chelsea.

Christie only gave away one foul in the reverse fixture but still saw yellow. That came in the 13th minute for a foul on Bruno Guimaraes, so he had to toe the line after such an early indiscretion. 

Newcastle’s recent form should see them look to make a flying start in front of a raucous St. James’ Park crowd. So, that could put Bournemouth on the back foot and reduce Christie to a couple of niggly and naughty fouls.

If that’s the case, it’ll be over to Stuart Attwell to clamp down. His sole Newcastle match came in their thrashing of Ipswich at Portman Road, where Tractor Boys hardman Sam Morsy saw yellow.

Christie will line up in a similar position, so I’m hoping for fireworks in the middle of the park. And I’ll also be combining Christie with Guimaraes and Joelinton in some doubles and a treble, just for sheer entertainment. 

• Selection: Ryan Christie to be booked (TRACKED BET)
• Best Odds: 6.00
• Bookmaker: Sky Bet
• Stake: 5/10

Stevenage vs Wigan: Scrappy games lead to cards 

England, League One, Saturday, January 18th, 15:00 (UK)

I’ll wrap this week’s piece up in the third tier, where one of the EFL’s meanest defences comes up against a Wigan side that struggles to score. If this pans out as hoped, with few goalscoring chances, we could see something of a scrap, which can only lead to cards. 

Stevenage have featured in The Cards Column are few times already this season. They average 2.46 yellows per home game and have hit 20+ booking points in 11 of their 13 games here at the Lamex. 

The Latics, meanwhile, average 2.50 cautions per away game, hitting the 30+ mark in eight of their 12 on the road. Shaun Maloney’s side have also landed the 20+ line in seven of their last eight away.

Now, league meetings between these sides have only become a recent thing. However, they’ve been tempestuous, to say the least. Those matches have seen booking points of:

• Oct 2023: Stevenage 55 v 125 Wigan (a red each)
• Jan 2024: Wigan 40 v 40 Stevenage
• Sept 2024: Wigan 30 v 40 Stevenage

Those three games have seen plenty of cards, and the reverse fixture in September, finished goalless to go with the seven cautions. 

Referee Jacob Miles isn’t the ideal candidate for this game having only shown 20+ bp to each team in six of his 15 league games. But here’s something I don’t mind about the arbiter.

Miles took charge of Wigan’s EFL Trophy game against Morecambe in September. That saw him issue a booking points split of 20-30. Meanwhile, his only involvement of Stevenage came in their home league win over Barnsley – six yellows shown with a 40-20 booking points split. 

With the high percentage of cards these two sides average factored in with their recent meetings, then the 2.10 for 20+ booking points each looks worth a play.

• Selection: 20+ booking points each team
• Best Odds: 2.10
• Bookmaker: Sky Bet
• Stake: 10/10

Safer Gambling

At bettingexpert, we always take a safe approach to gambling. We’ll never bet more than we can afford or chase losses. For more advice, head to our Safer Gambling hub.