I would much rather see the Arsenal team play in an honest way and win our games fair and square, but it simply does not seem to be a realistic way to get on in the Premier League. The fact is that cheats do prosper and so I wonder whether Arsenal need to get smarter about how we deal with officials.
When Gabriel got his red today it was clear that Mike Dean had not seen the flick of his foot but after Costa and the rest of the Chelsea players surrounded him and created havoc he asked the assistant who must have seen something.
My question is, why were we not doing the same about Costa´s outrageous behaviour before that? He was pushing and slapping at Gabriel and that was after his two red card offences against Koscielny. If the Arsenal players had acted as the Chelsea cheats did, might Costa not have seen red before the incident with Gabriel even had a chance to happen?
I don´t think Koscielny even complained and so I don´t think the ref even consulted his assistants. I think there has to be something to this because there have been so many times when Arsenal have had good reasons to complain about the decisions during a game.
Other teams know how to influence officials it seems, so is it a case of if you can´t beat them, join them?