Alvaro Morata suspended for Chelsea’s match against Everton on Saturday

Referee Lee Mason had a decent enough game on Wednesday as Chelsea staged a late show to beat AFC Bournemouth and advance to the League Cup semifinals for the first time in three seasons, but the referee seemed to be the enemy of fun when it came to goal celebrations, deeming it fit to award a yellow card to both Dan Gosling and Alvaro Morata who scored the equalizing and winning goals, respectively, in the 90th minute or later.

Neither player took his shirt off, they just went to celebrate with their sets of fans. Morata also put the ball under his shirt while sticking his thumb in his mouth in the classic “we’re expecting” pose to celebrate his wife’s recently announced pregnancy. But apparently that was just too much shenanigans for no-fun Mason, who brandished the card and no doubt felt a rush of satisfaction and power.

UPDATE: Apparently Morata also got into an argument with one of the Bournemouth players and kicked the ball away (or into the stands), which I missed, but is a much more valid explanation for a yellow. Silly boy.

The only trouble is that this was Morata’s fifth yellow before the cutoff date at the end of the month, which means that he will be suspended for Saturday’s game at Goodison against Everton. As Conte said in his post-match press conference, that’s a big loss for us, since Morata was undoubtedly scheduled to start that game after getting the rest today and giving Michy the minutes before coming on as a second-half substitute for the final 20 or so minutes.

Chelsea will now probably have to go back to the three-smalls forward line, which we’ve used in the last two Premier League wins due to Morata’s back problem and Conte’s mistrust in Batshuayi.