Arsenal 1-1 Brighton: Rice sees red in absurd circumstances

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
Arsenal remain unbeaten so far this season, but the perfect start to the campaign was halted after a 1-1 draw with Brighton yesterday.

The only change from the side that beat Aston Villa was the deserved return of Leandro Trossard to the starting line-up, and I thought this game had a similar kind of vibe to last week’s encounter. Brighton set up with a line of four players high up the pitch whenever we had possession at the back, looking to cut off passing lanes through the middle.

So, we found joy out wide, in particular through Bukayo Saka who gave Jack Hinshelwood a difficult time in the opening stages. I felt like we were building our way into the game, steadily and with confidence, but Brighton were boosted by an injury. It seems strange to say it, but Yasin Ayari replacing James Milner early on gave their midfield more dynamism, and I don’t think we were helped by Martin Odegaard taking a heavy kick on the knee. He never seemed to be quite himself after that.

Not long before, the captain had a great chance to score, but like Saka in a couple of moments previously, the conviction wasn’t quite there in the finish. At the other end, we had a scrappy 30 seconds which saw Karou Mitoma shoot wide, but as we headed towards half-time, we found a way through. Saka was too strong for Lewis Dunk, he played the ball over the defender for the onrushing Kai Havertz, who lobbed the goalkeeper with a beautiful finish to make it 1-0.

That was one of those moments where you expect Havertz to score, but wouldn’t have been that surprised if the ball bounced just wide. I saw him talk about wanting to score 20 goals this season, and those are the moments that will get him close to that tally. It was clinical and efficient, and just what you want from your centre-forward in a tight game.

The main talking point of the game though is what happened early in the second half. Already on a deserved yellow from the first half, Declan Rice was issued a second by referee Chris Kavanagh for lightly tipping the ball, and then getting booted by Joel Veltman. Let me say this, I am not interested in any ‘letter of the law’ nonsense around this incident, because no player should be sent off for that. Not even a Tottenham player, that’s how strongly I feel about this.

It is utterly absurd to make a team play with 10 men for that ‘offence’, for all kinds of reasons. First, the ball is rolling, it’s not even a legal free kick, and we can all see what Veltman is trying to do – that’s get an opponent sent off. He’s not trying to get the game restarted by playing a pass to a teammate, he was trying kick it at Rice in the hope the ref would give him a second yellow for not getting out the way.

Secondly, if Rice brushing the ball with his foot is deemed worthy of a second yellow card, why was there no yellow card in the first half for Joao Pedro who literally booted the ball away to prevent us from taking a throw in while he would have been slightly out of position? Just to be clear, I don’t really have an issue with that not being a yellow card on its own, but when you apply the rules to one team and not the other, it’s infuriating – especially when it results in the ultimate sanction for a player in the shape of a red card. Also, this is the kind of thing that happens countless times in every single game without players being booked, so that kind of inconsistency permeates this whole situation.

That is why the letter of the law nonsense should go right in the bin, and why I am not of a mind to listen to any criticism of Rice. The referee could have just come over and said ‘Lads, just get on with it’, and there would have been few complaints (beyond no card for Veltman kicking Rice that hard). As for the Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler insisting it was a yellow card because Rice ‘shoots the ball away’, while insisting you can’t compare/give a yellow to Pedro for doing the same thing (but much more obviously), that is the kind of thing that drives me mad.

He had the opportunity to do the game some service by saying ‘Yeah, we got a bit lucky, you don’t want to see players sent off for that’, but instead he backed up what is one of the most appalling bits of officiating you’ll see all season. He’s not on my Christmas card list, that’s for sure (unless I send cards saying ‘I hope your turkey is overly dry and the cat pisses in the gravy, you prick’). I’d put a very large bet down that no other player will be sent off that between now and May, and regardless of how this decision continues to be justified by media and pundits (and no doubt ESPN’s PGMOL Pravda Propagandist), it’s an absurdity that we had to play most of the second half with 10 men for something as asinine and nonsensical as that.

Brighton’s equaliser came as we were preparing to make a change and alter our shape. A good ball from Dunk saw Minteh get between William Saliba and Gabriel. David Raya saved the initial shot, but it fell for Joao Pedro who slotted home for 1-1. For once this season the centre-halves got caught out positionally, and when you watch replays, the way the goalscorer ran off Thomas Partey does nothing to assuage my concerns about his ability to keep up with the pacier legs of the opposition we face. I also think he switched off, guilty of ball-watching, and when that happens in this league, you get punished.

Riccardo Calafiori came on as we shifted to a back five, an interesting change, but one I think dictated to by what we had on the bench. Ideally you’d probably bring on another midfielder, but I don’t think Partey and Jorginho in a ten-man team against the kind of players Brighton have would have been the right move. Even so, we had chances. Havertz did really well to control and burst through, only for the keeper to make a very good save. Could Saka have gone down in the box from the rebound? I think so, but you can’t blame him for backing himself to have a go at goal.

It was Havertz again who made a great chance for Saka at the back post, but he was just on the stretch and couldn’t make the right contact. At the back, I thought Ben White was superb, the two centre-halves rediscovered their solidity, while the safe hands of Raya from crosses and set-pieces really helped us withstand the pressure Brighton put us under. But the fact they created so little in all the time they had with an extra man is a big credit to the organisation and discipline of the entire team.

Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

With 10 men, the team reacted unbelievably well, the stadium reacts unbelievably well and we should have won the game.

And on the sending off, he chose his words carefully:

I was amazed. Amazed, amazed, amazed because of how inconsistent decisions can be. In the first half, there were two incidents and nothing happened. This amazed me, at this level. I will repeat myself. By law, you want to do it but you didn’t do it in the first half. And then we have to play 11 against 10. Very simple.

As I said above, if Pedro had been booked for kicking the ball away in the first half, we could have no complaints about the Rice incident this morning, but that’s not what happened. The rules were applied differently to us, and that’s just fundamentally unfair. It also means we’ll be without him for the North London derby after the Interlull so it feels like a double-whammy.

Still, if we know anything about Mikel Arteta and how he operates, he’ll use this in the best way he can. It’s far from ideal, but it might be useful in terms of building an ‘us against them’ mentality, that’s my only slight silver-lining around this today. So, we remain unbeaten, and now we hope that our players who go away on international duty come back safe and sound.

I’ll leave it there for now, have a good Sunday everyone, and we’ll chat more about all this in the Arsecast Extra tomorrow.