HULL City boss Steve Bruce will ask David Meyler to "tread carefully" as the midfielder walks a disciplinary tightrope through the closing weeks of the Championship promotion race.
Meyler has amassed nine yellow cards this season to leave him just one booking short of an automatic two-match suspension.
Although all yellow cards are scrubbed by the Football Association following the second Sunday of April, it still leaves the combative midfielder needing to navigate four key games without collecting the dreaded 10th booking.
That means Meyler faces an awkward situation when second-placed City return to action at Huddersfield this weekend.
But while Bruce will not seek to change the Irishman's tough-tackling style, he will remind Meyler to keep his precarious disciplinary position in mind.
"You can't ask someone to change their game just because they're one booking away from a ban, but you can remind them not to do anything silly," Bruce told the Mail.
"David will need to tread carefully a little bit for the next four games.
"He's aware of his position and knows he can't afford to pick up any more bookings.
"You can't worry about these things too much. You don't want to be going into tackles with it on your mind, that's for sure.
"But he's been a very important player for us since he arrived and it would be a shame to lose him for two games. He's just got to get on with it and avoid any silly bookings."
As an influential figure in City's engineroom, a suspension for Meyler would inflict an unhelpful blow on the Tigers' automatic promotion hopes.
The 23-year-old has already missed one game this season – the Boxing Day clash with Leicester – after collecting five bookings in his first eight games for the Tigers.
Further bookings against Derby, Bolton, Birmingham and, most recently, Crystal Palace, have carried Meyler's tally for the season up to nine, and he must now come through the fixtures against Huddersfield, Watford, Middlesbrough and Ipswich without collecting number 10.
A booking this Saturday at Huddersfield, for instance, would immediately rule him out of the huge clash with promotion rivals Watford at the KC Stadium a week tomorrow, as well as the visit of Middlesbrough.
A yellow card amnesty comes into effect after the trip to Ipswich Town on April 13.
Meyler has become an instrumental cog in City's midfield since initially joining on loan from Sunderland in October.
A £1.5m deal made his stay permanent in January and he has responded with five goals, a figure bettered only by Robert Koren, Sone Aluko and Jay Simpson.
