Mikel Arteta has acknowledged that his team’s disciplinary record this season has cost points, and it’s something that needs to be addressed.
However, his view of some of the red cards issued to his players is mixed. He revealed conversations about moments of stupidity by Granit Xhaka and Nicolas Pepe for their sendings-off against Burnley and Leeds respectively, but in other instances he feels it’s the way certain moments in games are adjudged by officials.
The latest example of the latter came on Tuesday night when David Luiz was sent off against Wolves, a decision many Arsenal fans felt was harsh – even if it was the Brazilian’s third dismissal in a season and a half in red and white.
Asked if he was concerned about disciplinary matters at his pre-Aston Villa press conference today, the Arsenal boss said, “Well, when I was worried about the discipline it was on two occasions with Nico and with Granit.
“We should avoid that and we talked about it. But there are other ones that are moments in the game where in the split of a second you have to make a decision and then a referee has to make a decision as well.
“There is much less to control on our side there. What is clear is that when you have five red cards in this period, you are going to lose a lot of points.
“If we would have some of those points, we would be in a completely different position in the table, that’s for sure.
“There are no teams with five reds up there at the top, it doesn’t happen.”
In the Premier League this season, the Gunners have had five red cards: Bernd Leno and David Luiz against Wolves; Gabriel for two yellow cards against Southampton; Granit Xhaka against Burnley; and Nicolas Pepe at Leeds.
From those games, Arsenal have taken just 2 points from a possible 12, so it is something that has been costly.
Arteta also said he was hopeful an appeal over Luiz’s red would be successful, but that has to be weighed up against the risk of him becoming involved in yet another red card or penalty incident.
Let’s hope we can keep it 11 v 11 versus Villa on Saturday.
Crazy stats given where we could be with all those points we lost due to the red cards.
The future is looking bright if we can cut them out, now that we have got rid of a lot of our deadwood and have some great players coming through.
In our defence, Dani has tried endlessly to even things up and get the opposition sent off with outlandish melodrama.
At least if the footballing doesn’t work out, a career in Spanish daytime soap operas awaits.
Gabriel in the picture:
“You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”
Most of those games the team were off form and playing abolutely shit. I doubt those red cards made much difference
I think we lost at least 6 points Wolves and Burnley
Are we not appealing the one on Luiz then?
I’m unclear on that as well. Seems daft not to.
No, it doesn’t. According to the rules, it’s a red card. You can’t appeal because you think the rule is shite.
This article suggests we have, but I hadn’t seen it reported elsewhere, so was gonna ask the same.
We appealed and of course it was rejected by the FA. I’m sure that the decision surprises everyone…
According to Atreta he is confident of the appeal and it is already in.
Southampton should appeal as well and players caught faking penalties should get retrospective action taken.
You dont say!
Pepe, Xhaka and Leno were to with discipline, all the others including Eddie v Leicester were harsh decisions which on a different day we’d have got away with.
This in not part of any ‘wider disciplinary problem’.
It is a wider officiating problem, something the PL refuses to fix and something clubs and fans continue to support with this erroneous notion that it all evens out over the course of the season, or that this or that call is lucky or unlucky (!!).
Considering the financial impact a single dropped or gained point can have on a club’s position at the end of the campaign, it boggles my mind that the persistent misapplication of the rules is supported so resolutely by all of those involved and affected.
We have always had poor refereeing decisions in the past. Initially no-one noticed because there was no TV for media focus, merely written match reports. This led to reaction at every turn. Linesmen, 4th officials, review committees, even Dubious Goal panel! TV and slow motion raised questions which people decided needed to be addressed. “Why in this day and age can’t we have technology to review decisions”. Simple answer was that TV panels couldn’t agree, why should more analysis? VAR is the culmination of that but still relies on the exact problem we always had – personal opinion can be… Read more »
Should everything not be done to ensure that the right call is made, that the proper application of the rules is guaranteed, at every single moment in a professional competitive match in which so much is at stake? What is the purpose of accepting anything less than that standard? In a professional hockey match in the NHL there are four officials on the playing surface (12 players, 4 officials) and another off-ice panel that review the play. I don’t think you could call the product produced by the NHL slow, despite the intense analysis. I’ll never forget seeing Mike Dean… Read more »
I must admit I know nothing of NHL and if 4 plus a panel of however many get it 100% right that’s good.
Not sure how 4 refs thing works but would prefer that in football to VAR.
There’s nothing wrong with VAR as a tool. The people using it are the culprit.
Ah but everyone was worried there would be nothing to talk about after var was introduced… That worked well
Sorry, this is a late comment.
Rubbish. No other team is in the embarrassing state AFC is now with the cards. Blaming the rules or money is delusional.
Our players are acting like idiots. Luiz is a HUGE problem and should never have been signed. Xhaka is a hot head, and needs to go, too.
Possibly, but MA needs to get a grip and lay the law down. It would be potentially less of a problem if we had top quality replacements ready to fill gaps, but as we know, we don’t very often. That applies whether the cards are down to bad discipline or harsh decisions.
I’m sure others will disagree, but I’m a little tired of the jokes at our defenders’ expense, like the last paragraph here. We all know Mustafi and Luiz are the types of players we want to move away from, but to me it’s starting to lack a bit of class with the relentless needling they are getting here. Making one or two jokes is fine along the way, but referencing these two is getting old at this point. Especially as Mustafi himself has spoken out about how constant joke making and criticism have affected him mentally/personally. Everyone has a different… Read more »
They could just not read fan comments.
Mustafi is gone, and started a new life away from Arsenal. Us fans still have to live with what might have been, if it weren’t for certain foolish actions. It has been going on before these players, and will continue after them
True, MA – but what are you going to do about it? For all our efforts prior to the two previous PL games, we’ve not actually made much progress in the league. Losing players because of poor discipline – given we don’t have the strongest of squads to fill the gaps – won’t help that.
As is often the case, I suspect, Arteta is having to learn on the job and dealing directly with poor discipline is another new(ish) experience (Pep would have done that at City, as and when needed I expect). He needs to sort things out quickly.
I remember the game we had Xhaka sent off. Elneny was very lucky no to follow him a few minutes later….
Why am I awaiting approval? I have posted on here many times before.
This is more a comment about Luiz’s red card in particular here. I’m sure every club’s supporters will tell you they have the worst luck with refereeing decisions. But there does seem to be this thing that happens with Arsenal where some bizarre decision is made against us, and a bunch of referees will be brought out on tv to say “yes, it is actually the letter of the law”, only for us to then never see it implemented again. As well as last night, the example I’m thinking of is the first time Xhaka was sent off for us… Read more »
“Last night”? Just realised it was two days ago and I’ve clearly been raging about it ever since!
End of the day Pawson is an awful official we have lost the last 4 games he has officiated, he also been involved in other games where his decisions have been questionable. He disallowed Sokratis goal against Palace whilst in the VAR control room, he sent off Nketiah and we have seen much worse challenges go unpunished. Now we all assume there is no bias out there but seriously how can you justify that track record….it’s disgraceful in my view, all those decisions have been questionable none of them were clear obvious decisions.
It’s official. Pawson is the new Mike Dean. The king of shit refs is dead, long live the king of shit refs!
I have apportioned blame to Mikel Arteta for a lot of things this season – well-documented issues that don’t require any further mention in the context of this post.
What he cannot be faulted on, however, is our collection of Mickey Mouse red cards that have been dished out to us for the best part of fuck all.
I can’t honestly can’t remember the last time that I felt a red card we’ve had was deserved. Probably a David Luiz cock up. All the same, we’ve been getting the rough end of the deal for too long. Fucking refs.
No shit.
Reds since.
Only one was Xhaka. 3 are Luiz.
Dick Garlick: use your stature with the league to get some results for us, yeah?