Ex-Premier League referee Mark Halsey has revealed he has three doubts surrounding William Saliba’s controversial red card against Bournemouth.
The Arsenal defender was initially shown a yellow card for his last-man foul on Cherries striker Evanilson before referee Rob Jones was called to the monitor for a second look.
After a lengthy review, Jones eventually settled on revising his decision, with Saliba instead shown a red card for the clumsy foul.
It’s a decision that has sparked fierce debate, but Halsey isn’t convinced it should’ve been a sending-off.
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Writing in his Sun column, the former man in the middle said: “It’s a subjective decision, so I didn’t think VAR Jarred Gillett needed to get involved.
“For the denial of a goalscoring opportunity, we look at four key criteria. And I had doubts over three of those.
“The distance between the offence and the goal was lengthy, the general direction of play saw the ball coming across Evanilson and not in front of him and also the location and number of defenders was questionable.”
However, Halsey did admit Evanilson was the favourite for the ball: “The likelihood of him keeping or gaining control of the ball would have probably been in the favour of the Cherries forward because David Raya was back-pedalling towards his own goal.”
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It was the third time in eight Premier League matches already this season Arsenal have had a man sent off.
Reacting to the red card after the match, Mikel Arteta said: “It was a decision made on the pitch. That decision was changed. I don’t think it will change twice. The decision has been made.
“We are very disappointed with the result and gutted because we had to play in that context again.”
He added: “Even more difficult than the previous two that we have faced this season to do it with 65 or 68 minutes with 10 men at this level, it’s just an impossible task.
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“It’s an accident waiting to happen not to get the points. I cannot fault the team for their effort, their commitment, to play in the way we had to do it.
“There was a big moment at 0-0 when we have a one-vs-one with the goalkeeper and we don’t manage to score. Then in the other end we do that.”
Arsenal return to action against Shakhtar Donetsk in the Champions League on Tuesday night.
