Chelsea v Spurs Boils Over at the Interval, and It Keeps Happening

Chelsea host Spurs at Stamford Bridge on Saturday at 5:30pm, and this is a fixture people say gets booked heavily. So we counted. In the ten Premier League meetings in our records, from September 2021 to May 2026, referees showed 48 yellow cards to players, 28 to Chelsea and 20 to Spurs, plus two reds, both to Spurs on one night in November 2023. That's 4.8 yellows a game, against 4.04 across every Premier League match in the same five seasons.

The total isn't the surprising part, though. The timing is. In four of those ten matches, two or more players were booked in first-half stoppage time. Across the league as a whole that happens in about 3% of matches.

Our records start in August 2021, so older games come from published sources, named as we go: The Analyst, 90min and Sports Illustrated.

48 yellows, two reds and a one-sided rivalry

Here are all ten, with the referee for each and the cards by side. Chelsea have won eight of them, drawn one and lost one, and they've won the last six.

Chelsea are booked more than usual in this fixture, at 2.8 a game against their 2.45 across the Premier League in those five seasons, while Spurs are booked less, at 2.0 against 2.21. The venue makes no difference: 24 yellows in the five games at Stamford Bridge and 24 in the five at Spurs. The quietest games had a single yellow, in September 2021 and May 2024. The busiest was April 2025, when Craig Pawson showed ten, five to each side, and only 18 of the 1,835 Premier League matches in those seasons got that far.

The interval is where it goes off

Across the league in those five seasons, 342 of 7,535 yellow cards (4.5%) came in first-half stoppage time. In this fixture it's 10 of 50 (20%). Both counts include cards shown to managers. Four of the last seven meetings have had at least two players booked in first-half stoppage time, and nine of those ten cards were for arguing.

At Spurs in February 2023, Kai Havertz, Emerson Royal and Hakim Ziyech were all booked between 45+3 and 45+6, each for arguing. In November 2023, Levi Colwill, Nicolas Jackson and Pape Matar Sarr went in the book at 45+10. In April 2025, Trevoh Chalobah and Cristian Romero were booked at 45+1, and Chalobah was booked at the interval again in November 2025, this time alongside Rodrigo Bentancur at 45+3.

Arguing is the other marker. 15 of the 50 yellows here (30%) were shown for it, which is double the league rate of 1,167 in 7,535 (15.5%). Fouls still account for the most, at 26.

What the older games say

Before 2021 we lean on other people's records, and they make the same point from further back. The best known game is the May 2016 meeting at the Bridge, which ended Spurs' title challenge, and according to The Analyst the nine yellows Spurs were shown that night is still the most any side has had in a Premier League match.

• May 2016, Chelsea 2-2 Spurs. Twelve yellow cards, nine of them to Spurs players, and the draw handed Leicester the title (The Analyst, 90min).
• August 2022, Chelsea 2-2 Spurs. Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte were both sent off at the end of the game (Sports Illustrated).
• November 2023, Spurs 1-4 Chelsea. Two Spurs players sent off, the first time they had had two sent off in a home Premier League game (The Analyst).
• September 2024, Bournemouth 1-0 Chelsea. Fourteen yellow cards, a Premier League record for a single match, passing the 12 from 2016 (The Analyst).
• 2023/24 season. Chelsea were shown 109 cards, 105 yellow and four red, the most by any team in a Premier League season (The Analyst).

The 2016 game no longer holds the single-match record, but Chelsea were in the game that took it, and they hold the season record too. We couldn't find a published card total for the whole fixture back to 1992, so the ten meetings above are the ones we can count.

Saturday: who is in the middle

Chris Kavanagh has the game, and none of the ten above was Kavanagh's. Across 34 games over the last two seasons Kavanagh averages 4.26 yellow cards a game, 71% of those games have gone over 3.5 and half over 4.5, and both teams have been booked in 82% of them. The referees page has the rest.

Our model has Chelsea on 2.1 yellow cards and Spurs on 2.6, 4.7 between them, which sits right on the fixture's own 4.8. Both sides are quiet this season, though: Chelsea's 1.86 cards a game is the 9th fewest in the league and Spurs' 1.43 the 5th fewest, so the history and the referee lean one way and the current form leans the other.

Six players in our predicted XIs have been booked in this fixture before: Levi Colwill (arguing, 2023), Pedro Neto (December 2024 and April 2025), Cole Palmer (time wasting, April 2025), Jorrel Hato (time wasting, May 2026), Micky van de Ven (fouls in May 2024 and May 2026) and Mohammed Kudus (a foul, November 2025). The regulars who aren't named in our XIs are Pape Matar Sarr, booked in three different meetings, and Marc Cucurella, Trevoh Chalobah, Pedro Porro, Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie, each booked in two. The full Chelsea v Spurs preview has the teams and the projection, and the match page has the rest.

If you're weighing a cards market, this is the research to take to it, and the price is yours to check. The yellow cards bet builder and the Saturday bet builders are the places to look, and Chelsea's yellow cards and Spurs' yellow cards have every booking this season.

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