Arsenal have been trolled by Brighton after being held to a 1-1 draw by the Seagulls at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday. The Gunners were forced to play almost the entire second half with 10 men after Declan Rice was sent off following a second yellow card for kicking the ball away.
Arsenal had been firmly in control of proceedings up until Rice’s sending off four minutes after the interval, with Kai Havertz opening the scoring in the 38th minute.
But the Sussex side secured a valuable point as Joao Pedro turned in an equaliser just before the hour mark.
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The turning point came after referee Chris Kavanagh had awarded the visitors a free-kick after Rice had fouled Joel Veltman by the corner flag in the Brighton half.
Veltman jumped to his feet and attempted to take the free-kick quickly to launch the ball upfield. But Rice, who had turned his back on his opponent by that stage, nicked the ball away just before Veltman was about to make contact with it.
The incident resulted in the Brighton man kicking Rice in the leg and putting him on the floor before missing the ball with his follow-through. But it was Rice who was ultimately given his marching orders for delaying the restart.
Veltman was later named player of the match, with Brighton trolling their opponents by posting an image of the defender to X which showed him holding his award and smiling in an empty Emirates Stadium. It was captioned: "This guy."
After the incident between Veltman and Rice, TNT pundit Peter Crouch accused the Dutchman of tricking Kavanagh as he explained: “Everyone who’s played football understands what’s happened there. Veltman’s quite simply played the referee, there’s no way he’s trying to play a pass 60 yards to nobody - he’s trying to get Declan Rice into trouble. He knows he’s on a yellow card and it’s worked.”
And Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta later raged at Veltman as he insisted the defender should have also been sent off for kicking Rice.
“I was amazed. Amazed, amazed, amazed because of how inconsistent decisions can be,” the Spaniard stated. “In the first half there were two incidents - nothing happened. Then in a non-critical area the ball hits Declan’s heel. He turns around, he doesn’t see the player coming, he touches the ball. By law, he (the referee) can make that call [to send Rice off].
“But by law then he needs to make the next call, which is [a] red card [for Veltman]. So we play 10 against 10. At this level, honestly it’s amazing.”
And Arteta took aim at Kavanagh as well for his failure to book Brighton striker Joao Pedro for also kicking the ball away in the first half. “If it (bookings for delaying the restart) happens throughout the game in a consistent way, it is fine - but it didn't,” he added. “It is the inconsistency. I was amazed. In the first half when the opponents did that, they didn't get any booking.”
