EFL rule which benefits Birmingham City ahead of Watford, QPR, Preston and Leicester fixtures

Birmingham City players can breathe a sigh of relief as they are no longer at risk of receiving a two-match after they played their 37th game of the season.

Blues lost 1-0 to Middlesbrough at St Andrew's in a rearranged fixture on Tuesday night. Riley McGree, who was a Birmingham City player from 2020 to 2022 scored the only goal of the game to continue Mark Venus' winless start as interim manager. It leaves them one point off of the relegation zone ahead of their next match with Watford.

Several Birmingham City players will no longer have to worry though about missing these crucial matches which could decide their fate. The EFL have a disciplinary rule that suspends players for two matches should they pick up ten yellow cards from the 19th to the 37th game. It is the next level up from getting a one game ban from five yellow cards before the 19th.

Krystian Bielik, Ivan Sunjic and Jay Stansfield were all on nine yellow cards leading in to the Boro match and needed to avoid a booking. Bielik was injured anyway with a torn stomach muscle, but Stansfield and Sunjic had both been carded against Hull City a fortnight ago, and so they had to get through two rounds of fixtures without being carded. Both have avoided getting carded and whilst you can't always avoid getting cautioned, they can at least play with some freedom now.

Juninho Bacuna and Jordan James weren't far behind Bielik, Stansfield and Sunjic with the pair being on eight yellow cards. They too for the final nine games of the campaign can afford to book up some bookings, but not enough to tally up to 15 which would rule them out for this season and potentially some of the next.

Discipline has been an issue for some this season. Birmingham have Dion Sanderson back this weekend after he served a three-game ban. He was red carded against Southampton and after an unsuccessful appeal, he was forced to miss the games against Hull, Millwall and Middlesbrough.

Last season, Krystian Bielik was Birmingham's most carded player having been shown a yellow 13 times. He was closely followed by Juninho Bacuna on 11 and Man United loanee Hannibal Mejbri on 10.

Birmingham City have a busy run of fixtures ahead of them and they will need all the players that they can to avoid dropping in to League One. They host Watford at St Andrew's on Saturday before facing QPR at Loftus Road in their first game back after the international break, and then hosting Preston North End on Easter Monday. Birmingham face a mix of promotion chasers such as Leicester City and Coventry City in April as well as their relegation rivals Rotherham United and Huddersfield.