Once again the Arsenal and Switzerland international midfield star Granit Xhaka showed the reckless side of his game by launching into a rash, clumsy and fangerous tackle after giving the ball away cheaply and he was punished with yet another red card to make this home game against Burnley a lot tougher than it should have been for the last half an hour. And he will have been mightily relieved when Sanchez scored the match winning goal in the last minute.
THe only good thing is thst his sending off came not long after the Gunners had finally taken the lead against a spirited and hard working Burnley team. That goal came from the unexpected source of the head of Mustafi with Ozil claiming the assist with a whipped in corner.
We had been well on top up to that point but our finishing was not quite there and the visitors defended well. Mustafi had a great shout for a penalty turned down by the referee John Moss and while you cannot really com-plain about the red card he was wrong on that penalty and also gave seven minutes of injury time for some reason.
And then in that stoppage time he gave Burnley a penalty after a clip by Coquelin. There was minimal contact but there you go. THe one he got badly wrong was our own penalty and once again we pay a heavy price for a bad decision. But with less than a minute to go we got the win we deserved when Moss did award a spot kick after a raised boot from Mee caught Koscielny in the head.
With huge pressure on him Alexis Sanchez stepped up and calmy chipped it down the middle to grab the points and keep our title challenge alive…just.