Gary Neville has warned that Tottenham will sacrifice points if they persist with their ‘reckless’ challenges, despite their 2-0 win at Nottingham Forest.

Yves Bissouma was given a straight red card for a thoughtless foul on Ryan Yates with Spurs 2-0 up and will miss the next three games as a result.

The midfielder was dismissed for the second time this season after

a VAR check caught his boot scraping Yates’ shin as he wildly mistimed a challenge.

Spurs are now bottom of the Premier League‘s fair play table – with a disciplinary record more than twice as bad as Arsenal‘s – and Neville accused them of ‘madness’.

He told Sky Sports: ‘We’ve not seen these for years, these types of challenges. These have got to stop.

Gary Neville warned that Tottenham will drop points if they continue with ‘reckless’ fouls

Yves Bissouma was sent off for this dangerous challenge on Nottingham Forest’s Ryan Yates

‘It’s a straight red, banned for three games, and absolutely, I’ve got no sympathy whatsoever. They don’t exist anymore [these challenges]. They were outlawed 10 or 15 years ago! They seem to have come back in in this last month or two.

‘They’re so talented, these players, [Cristian] Romero, [Destiny] Udogie, probably a couple more that I could name. They’re so talented and [it’s] so important to Spurs that they’re available and they’re fit and in the team.

‘For them to lose them constantly through all this… look, I got sent off two or three times in my career and made some mistakes. But these are getting sent off two or three times a season, some of these players, and it’s the same players.

‘They’ve got to stop it because they’re going to cost Tottenham. Spurs will drop points without these players.

‘If they’re injured, you can’t do anything about it. But if they’re continually being rash and reckless with these challenges, it becomes stupidity, it’s madness.

‘I bet he’s angry inside. I bet the Spurs fans are angry. I’m a little bit angry because I’ve not watched a team play football for a few years that have excited me as much as this team in terms of knowing that I’m going to get a good game of football.

‘They’ve got to stop those little bits of ill-discipline. I accept that it’s commitment but they just seem to do it regularly. They have got to stop it.’

“These challenges have got to STOP!” ❌ @Gnev2 and @Carra23 react to Yves Bissouma’s red card and Spurs’ disciplinary issues this season 🟥 pic.twitter.com/Odro4Ltjsw

— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) December 15, 2023

Referee Jarred Gillett reviewed the foul on a pitchside monitor before brandishing a red card

Bissouma’s red card was his second and Tottenham’s fourth of the Premier League season

Romero and Udogie were sent off in Tottenham’s horror 4-1 defeat at home to Chelsea in November.

Cole Palmer converted the penalty after Romero’s foul to make it 1-1 and Nicolas Jackson scored a late hat-trick as Spurs struggled with nine men after Udogie’s dismissal.

Alongside Bissouma’s sending-offs, that makes four dismissals for Tottenham in the league this season – the Premier League’s joint-worst record with Liverpool.

Bissoum’s was first given his marching orders this season against Luton, when he earned a second yellow card for diving.

Ange Postecoglou’s side have also racked up a whopping 44 yellow cards, a total only exceeded by Sheffield United and Chelsea.

Quizzed about the foul and his team’s poor discipline after the match, Postecoglou said:  ‘I haven’t seen it, but I’m assuming they slowed it down and saw it.

Jamie Carragher hailed VAR for being at its ‘best’ after the red card was shown to Bissouma

Ange Postecoglou said that discipline is ‘something we talk about constantly’ at Spurs

‘Yeah, it’s been a little bit of an issue. It’s a fine line with those things. The players are aware they don’t want to miss games.

‘And the trepidation they put in the players, I think today was more of a desperation than something nasty and we’ve we’ve had to deal with that a few times this year.

‘You can’t go on doing it like that, because eventually we’ll pay a price for it [like] when we did against Chelsea.

‘So it’s something we talk about constantly. But like I said, it’s a fine line between their commitment to what we’re trying to do and not overstepping the mark.’