Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says he does not want to continue talking about Leandro Trossard’s sending off against Manchester City on Sunday.
The decision left the gunners with 10 men for the whole of the second half. Arsenal held firm but fell to a late John Stones goal at the death. The two teams shared the points, and the Gunners remained two points behind the league leaders.
Because Arsenal had to play with a man down, the team obviously tried to secure the 2-1 result. This did not go down well with Manchester City players who accused the Gunners of time wasting and ‘dark arts’.
Bernardo Silva accused Arsenal of not ‘playing football’ on Sunday:
“There was only one team that came to play football,” Silva told TNT Brazil. “The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately. But at the end we got a draw, the best we could get considering the context of the last moments of the match”
Mikel Arteta comments on Trossard sending off
The Arsenal boss was unhappy with the incident, citing a similar incident in the match involving Jeremy Doku, in which the Manchester City winger escaped a yellow card.
Arteta then asked for consistency in refereeing, specifically in Arsenal games:
“I want to be involved in a game at this level that puts the game in a situation that we can enjoy and talk about it in the proper way,” he said. “We’re not talking about that.”
“It’s that obvious that it’s not necessary to comment on it. It’s the second time. I’m expecting 100 Premier League games to be, 10 against 11 or nine vs 10 this season. Let’s see.”
Last season’s game proves Arsenal are right about refereeing
In the reverse fixture last season when Arsenal hosted Manchester City, Mateo Kovacic somehow avoided being sent off after making two yellow card worthy offenses seconds within each other. After the game, Howard Webb admitted that Michael Oliver should have been sent off:
“This is clearly a poor tackle. I’m pretty confident, that had a red card been given by Michael Oliver on the day, it would have been a very straightforward check complete. But he doesn’t, he issues a yellow card.”
“The player Kovacic comes into the tackle with the right leg, there’s some weight with the left leg as he lunges in. The right heel hits the ground and the contact is a little bit more to the side with a kind of an upright foot as opposed to a side on foot as we saw with [Malo] Gusto [sent off for Chelsea against Aston Villa two weeks earlier].
“A few small differences that led the VAR to feel the on-field decision here of yellow card wasn’t clearly and obviously incorrect.”
“I think he was an extremely fortunate player to stay on the field of play,” he admitted.
