Arsenal found themselves fighting against the odds against Leicester when striker Eddie Nketiah was sent off in the 75th minute for a mistimed challenge on James Justin just four minutes after coming off the bench. Eddie caught Justin’s knee stretching for the ball.
Chris Kavanagh (ref) initially showed only a yellow which was turned into red post a lengthy VAR review which was followed by checking the incident himself on the pitchside monitor. Mikel Arteta, like many Arsenal fans, were left fuming that Eddie was shown the red carpet but Jamie Vardy wasn’t for booting Mustafi’s face.
Arteta said in the post match interview: ‘The red card, he [Nketiah] cannot see the player, you have to understand he is a young kid. If we review incidents of that type we review them all. It has to be something equal for everybody because it changes the game for everybody. If Eddie is a red card for sure the other is a red card.’
Now, the Gunners have launched an appeal to turn out the after-cause of the red card. (dailymail)
The English starlet face a three match ban which would mean the Gunners would miss out on his services against Tottenham, Liverpool and the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City. But the Gunners are challenging his dismissal in hope of getting the decision overturned on the grounds of wrongful dismissal or his ban reduced due to excessive punishment.
FA does have a process in place enabling us ti fast-track our appeals to ensure we’d discover the result of the challange before Sunday’s trip to shadowed neighbours.
Kieran Tierney also came to Eddie’s rescue post-match, saying: ‘I had a view of the tackle. It looked accidental, I didn’t see it slowed like the referee but Eddie is not the player who would do anything like that.’
