They say good things come in threes. Talk to Mikel Arteta about Arsenal’s disciplinary problems this season.
William Saliba’s red card against Bournemouth on Saturday follows similar red cards for Leandro Trossard and Declan Rice earlier in the season. In all those games the Gunners have dropped points. This means they are already behind Liverpool and Manchester City in the Premier League title race.
“We can’t keep playing with 10 men, especially at this level and you can see all the difficulties the team has to win football games,” Arteta said at a press conference on Monday. “We have to eradicate it, that’s clear.”
Arteta’s frustration at dropping more points will be compounded by the fact that the Gunners have won every other Premier League game this campaign. 5 out of 5 when it comes to staying calm. But when the veil is lifted, there is a cost.
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Jamie Carragher discusses who is the favorite to win this year’s Premier League title and whether Arsenal’s misdiscipline will cost them.
“To get three red cards in your first eight games is really poor,” Jamie Carragher said on Monday.
“But if we don’t change quickly, we’re going to have big problems. Even at the start of the season, you don’t want to be three or four points behind Manchester City.
“It could be a strange situation where you get three red cards in eight games. As a manager, that happens once.”
But that’s not the case. Because this isn’t the only time we’ve seen this pattern at Arteta’s Arsenal. It seems like red cards are coming in bunches.
At the start of 2022, the Gunners received three red cards in four games, with Gabriel sent off against Manchester City on New Year’s Day. That was before Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey were given their marching orders in the Carabao Cup semi-final. Defeated by Liverpool.
In January 2020, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and David Luiz received two London derby red cards in 10 days for Crystal Palace and Chelsea respectively. Later that year, Xhaka and Gabriel were sent off within three days of successive league games against Burnley and Southampton.
This means Arsenal have received 18 Premier League red cards since Arteta moved to north London. This is significantly more than any other club. Additionally, the Gunners received two red cards in the first half this season, the same number as the remaining 19 Premier League clubs combined.
But Arsenal’s history of receiving Premier League red cards goes back much further. It goes back to the Arsene Wenger era. Red cards were not common at the Gunners at the time. So this is nothing new for the north London club.
After Wenger arrived at Arsenal in 1996, his team averaged almost five sending-offs per season over his first six seasons. When they won the double in 2002, they were sent off six times, including three before the start of November.
During the double-winning season, Wenger even admitted that the chances of a player being sent off were too high because his team regularly trained with 10 men.
The culprit behind Arsenal’s red card at the time was exactly who you would expect. Martin Keown and Patrick Vieira regularly went down the tunnel early, while Ray Parlor was sent off twice before Christmas in the 2001/02 season.
Arteta’s early days had a familiar feel to them. Luiz was sent off three times in Arteta’s first two years in charge, while Xhaka and Gabriel were also sent off twice in the same period. They often had the same face.
This season, the culprit is even stranger. Rice, Trossard and Saliba were all dismissed for the first time in their Premier League careers. The latter had never been dribbled by a striker this season before being sent off against Bournemouth on Saturday.
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Jamie Redknapp and Theo Walcott discuss Saliba’s red card against Bournemouth.
This creates the notion that Arsenal’s spate of red cards is not an old Achilles’ heel caused by the emergence of indiscipline, but rather that the Gunners have fallen victim to unfortunate circumstances as scrutiny over minor incidents increases.
“What happened in these three incidents had nothing to do with aggression in my opinion,” Arteta said. “Everyone has their own opinion. We want to be very competitive when it comes to showing that it’s good. When you show it and it doesn’t go your way, that’s part of your judgment.”
The most notable example of Arsenal’s misfortune was the yellow cards that delayed the restart, resulting in the dismissals of Rice and Trossard, but Saliba’s sending off looked similar to Tosin Adarabioyo’s challenge for Chelsea at Liverpool a day later and a yellow card was enough. did it
On Monday, Arteta cited “other very clear cases in the same position” as reasons why Arsenal could appeal the Saliba call.
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Dermot Gallagher explains why Saliba was sent off for a final tackle on Evanilson but Tosin Adarabioyo did not commit a foul on Diogo Jota.
But should our sympathy for Arsenal stop at the red card offense and what followed? Can Arteta’s side still pull off a win despite being lightweight?
“Are they actually bold enough with 10 men?” Carragher said. “You can still win a football game with 10 men, but is Mikel Arteta going in Pep Guardiola style, becoming more pragmatic?”
“When you do this with 10 men for 65 minutes, it becomes impossible,” Arteta said. And the specific circumstances surrounding Arsenal’s three red cards presented some major challenges.
In August, a 10-man Arsenal gave up a 1-0 lead against a Brighton side who had more possession at the Emirates than Arsenal before Rice’s red card.
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Dermot opted out of Arsenal midfielder Declan Rice’s controversial red card for kicking the ball away after he fouled Joel Veltman against Brighton.
Arsenal were struggling in the same way against Bournemouth. The Cherries finished fourth in the expected goals dominance table, showing what a difficult challenge they are to their opponents in the league.
And there’s added context on Arsenal’s injured squad last weekend. With two of their best creative players missing in Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli also only half-fit, Trossard was needed on the side. Despite using talented teenager Ethan Nwaneri as an attacking option, Arsenal were only able to name three sitting midfielders in their starting line-up.
“We had to adjust our midfield,” Arteta said. “Saturday’s game is not the best game that takes everything away.”
Even with a light player, Arsenal had chances to win games against Brighton and Bournemouth. Kai Havertz missed two great chances against Brighton, while Martinelli came off the bench to put Arsenal ahead 1-0 at Bournemouth. Their opponents largely failed to make the most of their extra players.
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Highlights of the Premier League match between Bournemouth and Arsenal
Arteta attributed this to his players’ impressive defensive performance. “The cool-headedness and attitude of the team is amazing,” he said on Monday.
“I told the players (on Sunday) that I had seen the game two more times and the way we played with 10 men in those conditions, the third time we had to go through it emotionally after coming back from the international break, it was incredible.”
But Arsenal showed just how good they can be with 10 men just seconds before beating Manchester City in light conditions. This was the most difficult situation European football could ever create. Do you have the feeling that Arsenal could have done more?
Speaking of City, they have received just two Premier League red cards in the last two seasons. And Pep Guardiola’s side won both matches. This is the standard that Arsenal and Arteta compete for.
Watch the next Premier League match between Arsenal and Liverpool live on Sky Sports Premier League from 4pm this Sunday. Kickoff at 4:30 PM. Stream the game with NOW TV Pass.
