An easy yellow

[Kontol]

Is it common to drop a noun after an adjective? Red card becomes red. Here is a quote from the BBC.

YELLOW CARD
Chelsea 0-0 Crystal Palace
Moises Caicedo is too skillful for Will Hughes, who resorts to grabbing the shirt of the Chelsea man with a blatant foul. An easy yellow for referee Darren England to show Hughes, and he does.

Chelsea vs Crystal Palace & Nottingham Forest vs Brentford LIVE: Premier League scores & radio

Follow build-up as Chelsea face Crystal Palace and Forest take on Brentford with radio commentaries, team news, live text and score updates as it happens from across the Premier League.

www.bbc.com

 

[teechar]

In that context, it's clear what "red" and "yellow" refer to, so yes, it's common enough to encounter them without the word "card" following.

 

[BobK]

As a bit of background, this dropping of a noun isn't peculiar to football (or even to English - in a pub, if you order a gin and tonic the barkeeper will ask 'Ice and a slice?' (and the slice is a slice of lemon). In Gallia Transalpina (France at the time of the Roman empire) caseum formaticum was cheese made in a mould, giving (ultimately) the word fromage.

I wrote about this here.