Arsenal fans have been left frustrated by refereeing decisions for most of the season as three red cards have gone against them already in the Premier League.
Mikel Arteta’s side are already off the pace in the hunt for the title and face an upward battle to win the division after a difficult start to the season.
Injuries have impacted the Gunners alongside some poor performances, though the question of refereeing decisions has cropped up a few times.
Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard and William Saliba have all seen red this season for various reasons, though they have been ones that supporters don’t agree with.
The latter of those came in a clash against Bournemouth where the defender appeared to be the last man before he took down Evanilson, resulting in a sending-off that led to Arsenal losing the match.
Howard Webb discusses William Saliba’s red card vs Bournemouth
There was a sense of frustration over Saliba’s red card at Bournemouth as the damage was self-inflicted – as Leandro Trossard’s poor backpass kickstarted the situation.
Referee Robert Jones initially gave a yellow card, though on VAR review he overturned that decision to upgrade it into a red card.
It was seen as a denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity (DOGSO for short), even though some argued that he was far from goal at the time.
PGMOL chief Howard Webb has clarified the situation as he said on Match Officials Mic’d Up: “I think that the offence committed by William Saliba in this situation did deny Evanilson an obvious goalscoring opportunity. I think the yellow card that was issued by Rob Jones on the field was clearly and obviously wrong.
“There’s two things that VAR can do here to prove that the on-field decision was wrong, firstly, you can see that Ben White is a long way away. He’s not going to get to Evanlison from that position and then secondly, they can see that David Raya is backing off and when the ball dies in front of Evanilson, even though it’s some distance from goal, he’s going to get on to that ball.
“He’s going to have time to gain nice control just for the goalkeeper to beat. So, for me, a good intervention by the VAR, a clear and obvious error in not showing a red card on the field.”
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Chelsea red card complaint compared to Arsenal
There was one frustration over that weekend regarding consistency for some Arsenal fans when they saw a similar offence in Chelsea’s game with Liverpool.
Defender Tosin Adarabioyo brought down Diogo Jota as seemingly the last man, in a similar situation to Saliba, but was only shown a yellow card.
Webb looked to clear that up by adding: “Colwill has a lot of time to get back from a close position to Jota and undoubtedly would have been able to impact the obviousness of this situation, I think.”
While that may be the case, some may argue that White could have caught up with Evanilson, though there was no certainty in that.
Either way, the discipline has been costly for the Gunners so far this season and they now face a challenge to find those dropped points.
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