Bookings: Cards to flow in Tuesday's Coppa Italia derby contest

CARD king Gavin Murphy (@GamePlanGavin) is back in Italy on Tuesday for his next dollop of bookings value.

Roma v Lazio | Tuesday 19:45 | Sky Sports Mix

The Coppa Italia semi-finals return this week. In the second legs, Napoli host Juventus on Wednesday but first up is the not so small matter of a Rome derby.

Lazio hold a two-goal advantage from the first leg. Both sides have been in great form so this promises to be a belter.

Nicola Rizzoli gets the whistle for this one. Having been one of Italy's top referees for a long time I was surprised to see that he has only covered this fixture on three previous occasions.

In those three matches Rizzoli has issued total cards of 8-7-7.

Card trends to revert to the norm

The first leg had just four yellow cards under the control of Max Irrati. It was an underwhelming, almost cautious encounter where a lot of the ultras from both clubs boycotted the game in protest.

Given the passage of time since that 1st March first leg, I expect normal card trends to resume here.

In the past six meetings between these two great rivals there have been 42 yellow cards and two reds. That is an average of 7.67 cards per-game.

Card collectors

I have already mentioned on Twitter that Lazio midfielder Lucas Biglia has a great track record of cards in this fixture. In his last five matches against Roma, the Argentine has been carded on each occasion; at 17/10 with 888 he is worthy of a speculative punt to have his name taken by Rizzoli.

With Daniele de Rossi apparently struggling to be fit, other consistent card collectors to consider include Stefan Radu (11/8 William Hill) and Antonio Rudiger (6/4 William Hill).

The betting angle

Back to the game and with Rizzoli in charge I expect cards in a do-or-die game. It wouldn't surprise me to see a red card but the recent stats don't really support that.

What they do support is 70 or more Bookings Points at 8/11 with SkyBet and I'm going to be investing into that with confidence.

If you’re new to Bookings Points, a yellow card earns 10 points and a red card earns 25 points. If a player receives two yellow cards and is consequently shown a red card, he receives a total of 35 Bookings Points.