Arsenal face a disappointing defeat away to Wolverhampton as both David Luiz and Bernd Leno is sent off. The Gunners started off the match with a blast, playing one of their best halves of football this season. Nicolas Pepe puts us one ahead. However, in the 46th minute David Luiz concedes a penalty and is sent off. The Gunners return for the second half with high spirits but a stunning strike from Joao Moutinho sees the Wolves up to 2-1. Disaster continues as Bernd Leno looses his head and is handed the red card after handsing the ball away from Adama Traore outside the box.
A full summary can be found HERE.
Source: Google
The red card. Controversial or not?
According to the rule book the red card is correctly given. David Luiz is not making a challenge for the ball and since Willian Jose is in the box with a clear goal scoring opportunity the ruling calls for a red card and a penalty.
It can however be discussed if you can really call it a challenge at all. Sure, he's not going in for the ball but he's not really going in for the player either. The foot of the attacker stubs the knee of the defender and by definition it is a challenge. The clear goal scoring opportunity has been denied and it has to be given back in form of a penalty. If the defender isn't going for the ball then he's taking out the attacker intentionally.
I want to put some weight on the word INTENTIONALLY. I do not believe David Luiz is going in towards the attacker with this intent. He is not given any benefit of the doubt in the decision and is directly sent off. Defenders are never given the benefit of the doubt.
That does bring up another problem though. What if defenders were given the benefit of the doubt? How can you define intent? You can read and you can interpret a situation but in the end it's all up to your own intuition. If defenders were to be given the benefit of the doubt they could all start making clumsy and "unintentional" challenges and hope that they're given the benefit of the doubt. In the long run this is worse for the game.
The ruling may not be perfect but it's not all that bad either. These situations don't happen often. In most of these situations you will see the defenders make the challenge and you can see very clearly if he's going for the player or the ball. This was just one of those situations that feels really unfair because there's no intent but where the rules and the referee are technically in the right.
Could this be fixed by rewriting the rules? Probably. Do I know how? No.
The way forward
It's a shocking defeat but it's hard to blame it on the players. Yes, David Luiz is probably gonna have to face some slack for being sent off, but can you imagine the rinsing he would get if he didn't chase the attacker? The hate and toxicity would be immense.
The boys did a good run of this match. They never gave up. Aubameyang was denied a possible goal by good defending following a superb sprint and dribble from Bellerin. The follow up from Bukaya Saka was also blocked. All while being down to 9 players.
I also have to mention the superb last minute freekick from Runarsson. He looked really confused coming up to take it but boy did he deliver it superbly.
Todays results really isn't down to the players will nor skill. The fighting spirit is there. The team spirit is there. Wolverhampton were never good. Even when playing with two players more for 20 minutes they weren't good. Wolverhampton was handed this win. We had it taken away from us.
We keep out heads up and we look to the next match. It's a rough one away to Aston Villa who has been superb although a little shaky this season. Let's support out boys and hope for the best.
Source: Arsenal Twitter
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