One of the most controversial moments in Arsenal’s 1-0 win against Manchester City at the weekend was Matteo Kovacic escaping a sending-off.
The Croatian aggressively tackled Arsenal players at least twice, which should have earned him either a straight red card or at least two yellow cards.
However, referee Michael Oliver allowed him to stay on the pitch and handed him a yellow card just once.
Several pundits and fans are convinced he should have been sent off in the first half of that game and VAR should have intervened to ensure that happened.
However, he remained on the pitch and it was one of the moments discussed during the PGMOL’s Match Officials Mic’d Up programme.
PGMOL’s boss Howard Webb admitted the Croatian should have been sent off. He said, as quoted by the Daily Mail:
‘This is clearly a poor tackle and I’m confident if a red card had been given by Michael Oliver on the day, it would have been a very straightforward “check complete”, but he doesn’t.’
Just Arsenal Opinion
We all saw that Kovacic had to be sent off for one of those challenges and never was.
The referee was lucky we won that game because there would have been a serious backlash because of his failure to make the right decision.
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