Blackpool manager Terry McPhillips doesn’t think Paudie O’Connor should’ve been sent off for his scissor tackle on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on Wednesday night.

With Arsenal down to 10 men, Unai Emery was forced to bring on some of his star players to help see out the win against Blackpool on Wednesday night. One of those was Aubameyang, who quickly made an impact with a pacy counter-attacking run.

Blackpool’s O’Connor didn’t want to let him get away, so he scythed the Arsenal man down. You can see the clip in the below tweet (watch from 0:17):

However, McPhillips told the media after the game that he doesn’t think his player should have received a red card.

“I didn’t think it was a red for our lad,” he said. “Where we play that is a yellow. I couldn’t believe it when he pulled out the red. We were in the ascendancy, had them on the back foot – credit to all the players.

“They had 10 men and we had to push forward and nearly pinched it off them… we threatened them more than they threatened us.”

Of course, you expect managers to say things like this about their own players. It’s easy to say you were unlucky to go down to 10 men, and you were dominating with 11. It’s harder to admit you weren’t even in the match until the even softer Arsenal red card gave you a man advantage.

That’s the reality. Arsenal were completely comfortable until Matteo Guendouzi was sent off.

Blackpool threatened for a little while after that, and they got one goal back, but never really looked like getting a second. Then they got a deserved red card with only minutes to go. It wasn’t the defining moment in the match, however much McPhillips tries to frame it as such.