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Hello! Another Arsenal dismissal. Another weekend of controversy.
Coming up:
Red mist: Lewis-Skelly sent off, Arteta ‘fuming’, police probe referee abuse
It’s no exaggeration to say that Arsenal — or their fanbase at any rate — are awash with paranoia about the establishment. Here’s a club who don’t believe refereeing decisions even themselves out.
Suspicion and resentment have been rising all season, heightened by contentious match-changing incidents. It peaked with Myles Lewis-Skelly’s red card at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, a dismissal that left Mikel Arteta “absolutely fuming”, fuelled the shouts of conspiracy and sparked a police investigation.
We have been here before — four red cards have been shown to Arsenal players in the Premier League since the last day of August. The three before Saturday — incurred by Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard and William Saliba — were debatable but Lewis-Skelly’s sending-off caused full-blown aggro.
The 18-year-old’s dismissal, via a straight red, came after a trip on Wolves’ Matt Doherty. You can use the GIF above to judge it for yourself. At first glance, it looked like the sort of technical foul the Premier League witnesses every weekend; an indisputable yellow for cynically halting a counter-attack. Lewis-Skelly’s body language says he expected that.
But at a certain angle, we can see his boot catching Doherty on the ankle with studs up. In the absence of any attempt to play the ball, referee Michael Oliver deemed it serious foul play — and under the laws of the game, that meant a straight red card and a three-match ban. The VAR upheld Oliver’s decision.
Arsenal rode the flashpoint. They held it together and won 1-0, keeping league leaders Liverpool in their eyeline, and they might seek to appeal the red card today. All’s well that end’s well? Er, no.
‘Appalled’ at online threats
The masses were queuing up to condemn Lewis-Skelly’s dismissal, pundits and all. Plainly, it’s draconian — but the studs-on-ankle view makes it slightly less of an outright scandal.
Oliver is one of the Premier League’s leading referees. For the PGMOL, the body that manages English football’s leading officials, it has been a difficult season already. Before Christmas, it was forced to sack top-flight ref David Coote after various off-field transgressions.
Last night, it issued a statement saying that Oliver had received social media abuse and online threats towards him and his family. Police have started “a number of investigations” and the PGMOL said it was “appalled” and determined to “tackle this unacceptable behaviour”.
Oliver has shown more red cards to players at Arsenal than any other club in his career: eight in all. But there’s another strand to this because Arteta’s squad are not shy in pushing the rules to the limit. Lewis-Skelly did just that at Molineux. Is the establishment out to get Arsenal? Or is the establishment just following the letter of the law?
- On the flipside, we had Everton’s Iliman Ndiaye booked by referee Tim Robinson for scoring in a 1-0 win at Brighton & Hove Albion (aka, the Seagulls) and then… celebrating like a seagull. A whistle should really come with a sense of humour.
News round-up
Premier League notebook: Wissa’s early celebration, Khusanov’s shaky debut, Postecoglou loses again
By no means was the Lewis-Skelly riot the only quirk of the Premier League weekend. Let’s dig into the notebook.
My highlight? Yoane Wissa celebrating Bryan Mbeumo’s penalty in Brentford’s 2-1 win at Crystal Palace before Mbeumo had even kicked the ball. The extra mad thing is that Mbeumo was retaking the penalty after missing his first attempt.
Towards the upper end of the table, we got an addition to the list of cringey top-flight debuts: Manchester City signing Abdukodir Khusanov giving away a goal in the third minute. He was booked, too, and subbed after 54 minutes. At least City fought back to beat Chelsea.
The position of Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, meanwhile, must be close to untenable. Enzo Maresca is fighting his corner but Sanchez’s misjudgement at City was costly, and the Chelsea faithful aren’t having him.
Further down the division, another depressing afternoon for Ange Postecoglou, although Tottenham Hotspur’s crowd seemed more irate with the board and chairman Daniel Levy during a 2-1 loss to Leicester City. How badly Ruud van Nistelrooy needed that result.
The less said about the spectacle of Manchester United’s 1-0 win at Fulham last night the better. Plenty, however, should be said about United eyeing up a loan for Chelsea’s Christopher Nkunku. Is it the right way to go when Amorim is crying out for a No 9?
And then there was the good train Nottingham Forest, derailing badly at Bournemouth. As we say in Scotland, Forest were horsed. Andoni Iraola is king.
- The Totally Football Show is across all of this and more. Would 11 Ryan Christies win Scotland the World Cup? The answer is available on Apple and Spotify.
Around The Athletic FC
Catch a match
(ET/UK time)
Championship: Burnley vs Leeds United, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports.
La Liga: Alaves vs Celta Vigo, 3pm/8pm — ESPN+/Premier Sports.
Serie A (both Paramount+/OneFootball): Venezia vs Hellas Verona, 12.30pm/5.30pm; Genoa vs Monza, 2.45pm/7.45pm.
And finally…
We almost rounded things off with a nod to Magdeburg who, on Friday night, sat top of Bundesliga 2 in Germany… without having won a single home game this season. How is that even possible?
But elsewhere in Europe, Monaco’s Maghnes Akliouche stole our ‘And Finally’ hearts with an overhead kick to die for (above). I’ve watched this back so many times. More whip on it than a Naoya Inoue liver shot.
(Top photo: Nick Potts/PA Images via Getty Images)
