As an Arsenal fan I often find myself left fuming by a decision from a referee or one of his assistants which goes against us. I really feel that recent years have been harsh on the Gunners in this respect, both in the Champions League and the Premier League.
At the same time, though, I think we can understand that we are not completely impartial when it comes to our own club, so we can see the same sort of incident in one way if it happens to us and another way if it happens to another team.
We do know the rules, though, and have to accept it when, say, a goal we really wanted is ruled offside correctly, as Mustafi’s header against Chelsea was this weekend. Perhaps and probably it is even harder for a football manager to see these incidents without bias as it can make a huge difference to their careers.
Wenger recently claimed that Arsenal were not getting the rub of the green from the officials and the defeat at Stoke gave him good reason, but did the Chelsea boss Antonio Conte also have good reason to suggest his team has been treated unfairly in their last three games Competitive against us?
The Italian told Sky Sports he thought it was very hard luck that Chelsea have been reduced to 10 men in their last three games against Arsenal, with David Luiz joining Pedro from the Community Shield clash and Willian from the FA cup final in taking an early bath.
Conte said, “I don’t talk about the referees, but the only thing I can say is we need to see what happened before the tackle.
“I repeat that we have great respect for them. But sometimes, it is very strange to finish for the third time in a row with 10 men against Arsenal.
“For sure it’s strange. A strange situation. I was a player and it can happen, this type of period and you are not so lucky to receive these red cards.
“I think we have to try to improve all the situations physical, tactical and we will try to pay more attention in the future.
“I hope to be more lucky with the referee’s decision, for us and also for the opponent. Sometimes the opponent deserves a red card and instead they continue to play with 11 men.”
Has he got a point do you think? It is a bit odd but could it be that Chelsea are over stepping the bounds too often? It was not too long ago, after all, that Gabriel and then Cazorla saw red against them while Diego Costa stayed on the pitch, so is this just a matter of luck evening out?
Bob.
Oh please, ref had a perfectly good game.
I hate sulkers.
Let’s not forget Costa and Gabriel incident couple of seasons ago, if anyone should moan it’s us we received a red instead of Costa where reacently Chelsea received red for red in every incident
A game we should have won yet we got draw, is this loser mentality or are we just not gritty enough to get wins when we have a decent fame?
Chelsea are recently finding Arsenal difficult to beak. That was a red. Only that it happened to late.
Did someone noticed that at one point they were afraid to lose including Conte himself? The ball was more in their half than ours.
Also at one point I was very sure we were going to win. If our boys should fight like there wouldn’t be much complains.
What is Conte yacking about? If he was Kolasinac and went to kick the ball only to meet an open boot from a certain callous Luiz I don’t think he would be complaining about the red. All the decesion looked fine to me. And it was Victor Moses who got the red in the FA cup final, not Wilian.
Oh shut up Conte & deal with the fact that you have some dirty cheating players in your team
David Luiz is a dirty player. Always has been.
Just like John Terry, but not as crafty, so he’ll get caught-out a lot more.
Conte should stop his players from diving every time an opposition player is within a few feet of them. (See Morata performing old pro trick of putting his leg across opponent and then falling over. Something Vardy dors very well also.)
He can go ahead and say whatever he likes it doesn’t concern us, he can moaning 4 all I care. We should be concerned about our own team, wenger should focus on how to build from here and not get complacent. If we are really serious with d right attitude, this team has what it takes to challenge on all fronts but I doubt we have that in our team now. Off-topic : wenger thought he knows better than everyone else because he stands at technical area of the team? He fielded rob holding, benched kolasinac and lacca just to please a useless ox. Look at kolasinac and lacca contribution to the team now.
no question about it that pedro’s high stud infringement upon elneny in fa cup followed by luiz’ high stud incident against kolasinac were reckless violations and both deserved a straight red. their manager conte has to say something, say anything, in an attempt to mitigate the punishment that attaches to Luiz’ offence.
conte will be tryin to get an automatic 3 matches reduced down to a 1 match ban which is why he made his criticism public. unfortunately, he has an impossible task because the camera will not lie.
Conte is just doing what countless other managers do when his players get sent off, he goes into complete denial mode.
Each red card that Chelsea have been awarded in games against us have been 100% justified.
To suggest that Alexis’ nudge in Luiz’s back caused the Brazilian to go in studs up at shin height on Kolasinac is frankly insulting people’s intelligence.
Luiz is and always has been a dirty player.
Serves Chelsea right. They have always played dirty and bullied our lily-livered boys in the past. They have only just been found out. Do you remember how many times Costa escaped with bullying our players and goading them into committing red-card offenses? It’s just karma, mates….
Up Gunners!!