Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has claimed the red card that Granit Xhaka received today was on the harsh side.
The Gunners stuttered over the finish line to take away the full three points today, and a red card threatened to disrupt their hopes of doing just that.
Xhaka was at fault for giving the ball to Gylfi Sigurdsson for the Swans opening goal, and just as our opponents were gathering momentum, which just so happened to come after pulling the score back to 3-2, the midfielder got himself sent off for a deliberate foul.
Despite the fact that Xhaka clearly meant to bring the player down in order to break up the play, Wenger tried to play down the foul, describing it as a ‘dark yellow’.
He said: “It looked harsh to me. A dark yellow. But the referee went for a bright red.”
The Frenchman then went onto to explain how the game was hard to analyse, as he felt there was positives and negatives to take on board.
Wenger added: “I have some mixed feelings because it looked at some points comfortable and then it never was.
“We finished with good solidarity and we made it over the line.
“We have the same number of points as Manchester City so if you look at their game today, it’s interesting but you have to be intelligent enough to see it over a longer distance”.
For me, the most surprising thing was that Arsene Wenger actually saw the incident…
Did Xhaka deserve his red card? Was Wenger on a wind-up with his dark yellow comment?
Pat J
I also thought as much. Most especially, seeing Walcott being fouled by the Swans on more than one occasions for bookable offences. However, before the goals Xhaka was cut out of position several times before he was sent off, the coach need to to talk to him.
What happened to our players today, kept on losing ball to the Swans at edge of our boss (what led to the first goal). Koscienly and Mustafi made similar errors, we were lucky that they didnt count against us.
Nevertheless, Up gunners. boro next
Here come all the d*ckheads saying Xkaka is a liability. We’ve been waiting for this type of player since Vieira left. Not only that but that was never a fckn red. Yellow all day long.
Off Topic
We won 🙂
hehehe
what I don’t quite get is why Wenger said he won’t appeal for the card despite admitting it was a ‘dark yellow’ not a ‘bright red’.. could it be to make Xhaka an even better player or to gain favour from the officials in games where they are more needed?