Clean up your act

off you go: Athletic defender Jean-Yves Mvoto gets his marching orders at Crawley — one of five red cards for the club last season.

LEE Johnson is determined there will be no repeat of the club’s shocking disciplinary record next season; player contracts could even include new penalties for poor match behaviour.

Athletic’s manager has asked director Barry Owen to investigate why the number of yellow and red cards was so high during the season.

The club gathered 107 cautions, and all five red cards were avoidable — three were for violent conduct and two for serious foul play.

The embarrassing record put Athletic at the foot of the FA’s Fair Play table for the division - and meant key men missed large sections of the season across 13 suspensions.

Johnson is determined to avoid similar disruption in 2013-14: “It’s definitely a situation we need to act on,” said Johnson.

“Sometimes there are good bookings and poor bookings, but from what I’ve seen there were a lot of poor bookings last season.

“Throughout the whole club we need to address on-field discipline. We certainly don’t want to see a repeat of those figures, so we’re even looking at structuring something into the players’ contracts.

“We can’t afford to be having players missing from games through suspension.”



Johnson says he remains close to another new signing alongside that of Jonson Clarke-Harris.

He has already spoken of his reluctance to rely too much on loans next year, but Johnson is currently exploring options to acquire talented youngsters from the top flight.

“I am speaking to a few Premier League clubs about loan players,” he said. “That has an impact on the rest of your recruitment. There’s no point in getting in a number of right-wingers when there is one better you can get from the top flight.”



MATT Smith has been nominated for the npower League One player of the month award for April.

The Athletic striker netted crucial goals in victories over Bury, Yeovil and Crawley and is up for the prize along with Bournemouth’s Harry Arter and Roman Vincelot of Leyton Orient.