Brighton 1-1 Arsenal - VAR
Brighton 1-1 Arsenal - VAR
Late yellow cards in a lost cause are easy to argue about. One set of supporters sees violent conduct. The other sees a tired trip and a referee who already has the whistle in his mouth.
VAR is supposed to settle that argument. When it does not change the on-field call, the explanation still arrives the next morning, because everybody has already compared it with another game from the week before.
Three-match bans sit behind those debates. A red in stoppage time does not only end one afternoon. It removes a midfielder from the first three fixtures after an international break.
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The Premier League have, via talkSPORT, outlined why Declan Rice was not sent off in Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat at Brighton. In the final seconds he kicked out at Malick Yalcouye. Referee Darren England showed a yellow. Brighton players and fans wanted a red.
Social media immediately compared it with Phil Foden’s dismissal for kicking out at Bruno Fernandes in last week’s Manchester derby.
VAR Timothy Wood checked the incident before the final whistle. The report says officials decided the foul “did not meet the threshold for violent conduct” and that Rice’s actions were “petulant at best”.
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A violent-conduct red would have ruled the England midfielder out of Arsenal’s next three Premier League games after the break: Leeds United, Nottingham Forest and Everton.
Alan Shearer backed the yellow on Match of the Day. “This was frustration from Declan Rice,” he said.
“Yalcouye gives him a little nudge there and I do think the referee gets that right. He gives him a yellow card.
“I don’t think it was too aggressive, he didn’t lash out at him, therefore I think the referee got that right, but it sort of summed Arsenal’s day up.”
Match of the Day also posted: “Referee gets that right.” Shearer thinks it was correct to give Rice a yellow.
The result itself was already settled. Pascal Gross, Charalampos Kostoulas and Chema Andrés had put Brighton 3-0 up, City have gone above Arsenal, and the champions go into three weeks without a league match.
Rice stays available for 10 October at home to Leeds. That is the practical outcome of the check. The clip will still be argued over, because Foden went and Rice did not, but the official line is that the kick was petulant rather than violent.
Mikel Arteta - Arsenal
Mikel Arteta - Arsenal