Four Birmingham City players in danger of two-match ban ahead of Middlesbrough, QPR and Watford ties

Birmingham City are at risk of losing two players after they moved closer towards a suspension. 

Ivan Sunjic and Jay Stansfield will need to avoid picking up a yellow card against Millwall and Middlesbrough, otherwise they will serve a two-game ban. Both Stanfield and Sunjic were cautioned against Hull City on Tuesday night, and the pair now have nine bookings apiece this season. 

The EFL has a disciplinary rule that gives out two-match bans to those who have accumulated 10 yellow cards before the 37th game of the season. Birmingham have played 35 games and so there are more matches to get through than most sides in the division who have played their rearranged fixture.

Polish centre-back Krystian Bielik like Stansfield and Sunjic is on nine yellows but is expected to miss the amnesty point through injury. The 26-year-old is sidelined for a few weeks with a torn stomach muscle, and won’t return until after the international break.

Juninho Bacuna and Jordan James are two others at risk of a suspension with eight yellow cards this term, but both of them managed to avoid getting carded on Tuesday. If they earned bookings in their next two games then they would be suspended and would miss the fixtures against Watford and QPR.

Club captain Dion Sanderson is already absent through his own suspension after being red carded against Southampton. He was dismissed after a foul on Will Smallbone midway through the second-half and served the first of three games of his ban after the appeal was unsuccessful. Blues are currently short of options in the defensive area with Marc Roberts nursing a calf injury which has caused him to miss the last two games.

As for Birmingham’s midweek opponents, Middlesbrough don’t have anyone that is on eight or nine yellow cards and so no one is set to miss out through suspension.