The last two red cards were contentious but we should have no complaints about this one.
After a fairly long period without club football, gooners would have expected a better result and performance than what the Gunners served up at the Vitality on Saturday evening, indeed the Cherries suffered us our first loss away from home in 2024 thanks to second half goals from Ryan Christie and Justin Kluivert. These goals came after the sending off of William Saliba after just 30 minutes.
Arsenal were playing poorly even before the dismissal with our play being disjointed akin to the performance we put in against Atalanta a few weeks ago. With that said though we would have still fancied our chances of getting something from the game if not for the very clumsy challenge by Saliba.
His dismissal meant that this is now the third player we have seen get sent off for us this season which is the most in the PL. With the last two, Gooners were understandably frustrated with the refereeing decisions that saw Rice and Trossard get sent off, but with this one there should be no complaints because of how blatant the foul was and, as the last man, he was rightfully punished. I’ve seen some gooners argue that White or Raya would have had it covered but the sad reality was that neither would had a better chance of stopping Evanilson than Saliba himself.
We would have had a better chance of winning that game if he had let the striker go through on goal and besides Raya might have had it covered, but instead we were made to pay this time by a rare mistake from the Frenchman. The Gunners will not have time to lick their wounds as a trip to Shakhtar awaits on Tuesday and we will be hoping to get back to winning ways that night.
Do you think Saliba’s red card warranted or not?
KENNETH BENJAMIN.
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All our defeats were self inflicted. End of.
Sorry all our points dropped, were self inflicted.
It’s seven points now, isn’t it. I guess we could say that if Arsenal is in a “red card hole” the least that they can do is to stop digging.
🤣🤣🤣
The referee issued a yellow card as the incident took place around the half way line some 45 yards from our goal.To suggest that this is a “goalscoring opportunity” is ludicrous particularly as the Bournemouth player would have to control the ball and outrun both Saliba and White who was in a position to sprint back.What would have happened if the incident had taken place just inside the Bournemouth half? And where do you draw the line in terms of suggesting what is, and isn’t a goalscoring opportunity.? I do not blame the referee, not the VAR official but clearly the current rule is flawed and needs to be changed .
Inside the Bournemouth half, doesn’t count as a goalscoring opportunity. As the rule stands, it was done to the letter of the law. As soon as I saw it, I said red card. Because it was.
Grandad, a couple of years ago at Villa, Saka was through on goal when he was tripped by Konsa. Surprise, surprise, no red card was issued, just a yellow. Saka was even further in the Villa half than Evanilson was in ours.
Should they need to account for how fast they think the players are? Realistically the striker was ahead of saliba and had a clear path to goal – he might not have been able to get a shot off, he might have been able to find a pass to a teammate once white or saliba caught up, who knows. It was very likely going to be a highly dangerous situation had he been able to chase onto the ball – I think it’s reasonable to call the foul “preventing a goalscoring situation”.
Raya was off his line, so Evanilson also would have had the opportunity to shoot early.
Three very serious concerns for me
– 3 red cards in 8 games! Simply unacceptable for a team that has championship ambitions
– The Arsenal team cannot cope playing with 10 men. ManU were down to 10 men and a goal down but rallied to win against Brentford who themselves are a fairly decent team
– The hype around Saliba seems to be creeping into his head and injecting a wee dose of complacency.
Arteta and his staff need to sit up with the players and sort these things out otherwise our season will have ended before it even started
Man Utd did not have a player sent off against Brentford.
You’re right; my mistake.
But fact still remains: we don’t look a top when playing without a full complement of players
Neither Man City nor Liverpool have been obliged to play with ten men this season which is a credit to them, but we don’t know how they would have coped in these circumstances.I thought we did remarkably well to get a point against City but the trick is to avoid having to climb mountains by keeping eleven men on the pitch.We have not suddenly become a poor side but we must improve our discipline if we are to challenge for honours.
Not true. Liverpool and city can cope well with one man down and even smaller teams. Fulham were 2-1 down and also a man down against arsenal but they put heavy pressure on arsenal who were fully eleven and, at the end fulham equalized. Arsenal is the only big team in the premier league that cannot play under pressure with ten men. As the previous speaker said, Arteta should sit with these boys and tell them the reality of this game. Let’s stop concentrating on referees. The arsenal players should know better.
There were doubts as to whether the goalscoring opportunity would have been scored as explained by ex referee mark halsey, so your assumption that it would’ve been scored is unreliable like all the pundits who are biased. Look up any link to the mark halsey explanation if you like. I’m surprised that an arsenal fan who thinks he’s a journalist, believes it was a red card. I guess it’s because we’ve had 3 now and you’re not happy about it, but as we’ve seen by the inconsistency by the officials, they are quite clearly biased against us.
It’s ironic that this rule was introduced as the result of a foul by one of our players in a cup final.
For what it’s worth I’m not so sure that this was clear-cut goalscoring opportunity as the distance from goal, Saliba’s recovery speed and White closing in to offer support made it somewhat unlikely.