Mikel Arteta was scathing about Michael Oliver’s lack of consistency after the referee sent off Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard for a second yellow card offence of kicking the ball away despite failing to book Manchester City’s Jérémy Doku for the same in Sunday’s incident-filled 2-2 draw at the Etihad Stadium.
Trossard had already received a yellow when, after fouling Bernardo Silva near halfway in first-half added time, the Belgian showed dissent by kicking the ball. Arsenal had to defend their 2-1 lead with 10 men for all of the second half.
The visitors nearly did so, being breached only by John Stones’s 98th-minute strike that cancelled out Gabriel Magalhães’ header. Erling Haaland had opened the scoring before Riccardo Calafiori equalised for the Gunners.
Arteta was asked about Trossard being booked and Doku escaping. “I prefer not to comment – I’ve seen it and it’s obvious,” the manager said. “It’s not necessary to comment. If it’s like that [today’s inconsistency] I’m expecting 100 games to be 10 v 11 this season – that’s it.
“Obviously, it is already a miracle we played 56 minutes at the Etihad with 10 men. It is unbelievable what we have done. It is obvious what happened when they made that decision, but it doesn’t deserve my comment. I don’t want to ruin anything else off the pitch.
“We adapted in the best possible way, the way we compete – I’m so proud of them. It couldn’t be a more difficult situation and the way we handled it.” Trossard is the second Arsenal player to be sent off in this manner after Declan Rice in August’s 1-1 draw with Brighton.
After Stones’s goal Haaland rebounded the ball off the back of Gabriel’s head, which is a yellow card offence at minimum. Arteta was asked about this. “I think it was emotions and that’s it,” he said.
Before and after Trossard’s red card Arsenal slowed the game down and deployed blocking tactics at corners. Stones said of Arsenal and such “dark arts”: “I don’t know if they have mastered it, they’ve done it for a few years, and we know to expect that. You can call it clever, or dirty, whichever way you want to put it.
“They break up the game, and obviously it upsets the rhythm for everyone. They use it for their advantage, and I thought we dealt with it really well.
“It’s not easy when those things are happening, and you’re trying to gain momentum, you’re trying to get a foot in the game and get above them. Those little stoppages stop that, and I thought we dealt with it.”
Pep Guardiola criticised Kyle Walker for failing to mark Gabriel when the latter scored. “He has to [do better] and didn’t,” said the manager.
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Rodri was forced off with what appeared to be a knee problem. “I don’t know [how serious] – I didn’t ask the doctors,” Guardiola said.
Bernardo Silva echoed Stones’s thoughts on Arsenal’s approach. “There was only one team that came to play football,” he said. “The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately. But at the end we got a draw, the best we could get considering the context of the last moments of the match. We’re not happy as we wanted the three points, but personally I’m happy with the way we came to play and faced the game. I’m glad we always enter the pitch to try to win every match.”
The Portuguese expanded on his criticism of the visitors. “It all started in the very first second. In the first action we realised what was going to happen,” Silva explained. “We had a player injured after they sent him to the ground twice in ten minutes. We had a goal conceded after the referee called our captain and then didn’t allow him to recover his position. The second goal is already their usual block to our keeper allowed by the referee. And then the referee allowed a sequence of time-wasting events. The thing that bothers me the most is having a lot of meetings with the FA at the beginning of each season. They tell us they will control this kind of situation and will stop them, but at the end it doesn’t have any worth. They say a lot but nothing happens.”
Asked about the difference between City’s rivalry with Liverpool and the one with their new rivals Arsenal, Silva said: “The difference? I don’t know. Maybe that Liverpool have already won a Premier League, Arsenal haven’t. That Liverpool have won a Champions League, Arsenal haven’t. Liverpool always faced us face to face to try to win the games, so by this perspective the games against Arsenal haven’t been like the ones we had and have against Liverpool. So yes, maybe a different rivalry.”
Despite dropping their first points of the season, City are the leaders after five games with 13, two ahead of Arsenal.
