109 bookings in a single season
The record belongs to Chelsea. In the 2023-24 campaign, Mauricio Pochettino’s Blues picked up 109 bookings in the Premier League, including four reds. No side has managed worse since the competition was launched in 1992.
The previous mark belonged to Leeds United, with 104 bookings in 2021-22. Chelsea matched it at Nottingham Forest in almost comical fashion. Nicolas Jackson had just turned the game on its head when he jumped into the crowd to celebrate. Chris Kavanagh brandished the yellow.
The seal finally blew in the penultimate round, at Brighton, with yellow cards for Moises Caicedo and Raheem Sterling, then a red for Reece James.
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Jackson, ten cards and just one foul
Jackson’s case is worth a closer look. Ten bookings that season, all yellow, and only one for an actual foul. Six came for dissent, one for stepping onto the pitch without the referee’s permission, one for failing to retreat at an opposition free-kick, and the last for that crowd celebration.
He wasn’t on his own. Caicedo racked up 11 yellows that season, while Marc Cucurella collected 10, his coming on the final day.
Chelsea repeated the trick the next year with 101 bookings, making them the only club in history to go past 100 in back-to-back seasons. In 2025-26, the Blues finished on 98, but with eight dismissals, just one shy of the competition record shared by Sunderland in 2009-10 and QPR in 2011-12.
Capoue, the man with 15 bookings
Among players, the benchmark is Etienne Capoue. He picked up 15 bookings for Watford in 2018-19, 14 yellows and one red. Nobody else has hit that total in a Premier League season.
Behind him come eight players on 14: Mark Hughes and Olivier Dacourt in 1998-99, Robbie Savage at Leicester in 2001-02, Paul Ince at Wolverhampton in 2003-04, Cheick Tiote at Newcastle in 2010-11, Lee Cattermole at Sunderland in 2014-15, Jose Holebas at Watford in 2016-17 and Joao Palhinha at Fulham in 2022-23.
Other clubs have come close to the ceiling. Wolverhampton racked up 104 bookings in 2023-24. Tottenham collected 103 in a 2025-26 season that ended with them uncomfortably close to the drop. Sheffield United reached exactly 100 in 2023-24, the same year they also conceded 104 goals, another league record.
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