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Another Arsenal red card, this time for William Saliba – and manager Mikel Arteta has had his say on the decision.
The Gunners lost their French centre-back 29 minutes into their clash against Bournemouth, after he was judged to have brought striker Evanilson down and prevented a clear goalscoring opportunity.
Referee Robert Jones originally booked Saliba but after an intervention from VAR Jarred Gillett, was shown a straight red card.
This is the third time this season that Arsenal have been reduced to 10 men in just eight matches played.
Declan Rice was given a second yellow card at home to Brighton and Hove Albion for what was deemed to be delaying the restart, in a highly controversial incident just three games into the season. Two games later, Leandro Trossard was dismissed for the same thing against Manchester City.
The result leaves Arsenal a point off Liverpool – who play Chelsea tomorrow – before they host Arne Slot’s side next weekend, without Saliba, who will also miss an away trip to Newcastle United as part of his suspension.
In his post-match press conference, Arteta spoke about the decision and how it affected his team against the Cherries.
Q: Is that a game that changed on the red card again?
Mikel Arteta: Absolutely, we are obviously very disappointed with the result and gutted because we have to play again in that context. Even more difficult that the previous two [games] that we’ve already faced this season, playing 65 or 68 minutes with 10 men at this level is just an impossible task. It’s an accident waiting to happen not to get the points.
I cannot fault the team for their effort and how intelligent they are to play the way that we have to do it. It’s a big moment obviously, it’s 0-0 when we have an opening and there’s one situation with the keeper where we don’t manage to score.
But we have to not fool ourselves. Football is a sport where errors are a part of that and tonight we have made two big errors that have cost us the game unfortunately.
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Q: What did you make of the red card, what is the correct decision?
MA: Well, it was a decision made on the pitch – and the decision has changed. And now the decision is not going to change twice.
Q: That’s your third red card this season, how can you resolve this situation?
MA: There are things that we have discussed, in relation to certain topics. What happens today is an almost unpredictable thing to happen where the winger’s going to play the ball to your centre-back in the air, one touch and there’s going to be a challenge there. Very difficult plan it, we need to play 11 against 11 if we want to be in the position that we want to be.
Q: Your team made two big mistakes today… does that hammer home the importance of getting the basic things right?
MA: Yeah, but they have the best intention: William has never done anything like this on purpose or what happened with the second goal but it happened, unfortunately it happens and we couldn’t turn it around. When it happens especially that often – this is the third time this season and the first two, we get away with it: the other times have been different because we were ahead [at the time of the sendings off] – we have to accept it, move and and we have to take that pain and focus on Tuesday.
Q: Did you expect more from your team?
MA: In the first half or the second half?
Q: The second half.
MA: More with 10 men? I don’t what more we can do with 10 men, away from home in this league. It’s hard enough with 11 so what we’ve done with 10, I think, is quite remarkable.
Q: Saliba seemed to panic when he brought down Evanilson – even though he was quite far away from the goal…
MA: I don’t know, it’s a split second decision he has to make. I think the striker is on his back, obviously he doesn’t expect the ball suddenly to be coming his way and he makes a decision – and the referee has decided to give a red card.
Q: Aside from the red card, it wasn’t your best performance. How much of that was down to missing Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka?
MA: I cannot assess the performance when you play 65 minutes with 10 men away from home. It’s impossible.
Q: How do you bounce back from this?
MA: Using the pain that we are feeling at the moment for Tuesday – that’s the best way to do it. Not feeling sorry for yourself – it happens again, in any matches and missing our captain [Odegaard] and one of our best players [Saka] and Jurrien [Timber] and this and that. No, that’s not going to take us anywhere. Keep the energy: these boys deserve it because of the way these boys train and keep working on Tuesday and that’s it.
Q. Do you think VAR should have intervened?
MA: I don’t know, they have their own process, they decided that way. That’s it.
