Matteo Guendouzi will not be charged by the FA for grabbing Neal Maupay around the throat in what seems a rather nice change of fortune for Arsenal.
Martin Atkinson, you’ll be shocked to hear, didn’t see the incident, but Michael Oliver, who was the VAR for Arsenal’s match at the Amex did, but didn’t deem it worthy of further action.
Honestly.
Perhaps he understood why the Arsenal players were so annoyed with the Brighton man. He had, after all, been responsible for seriously injuring our goalkeeper and then saying ‘we deserved what we got’.
When asked about the incident, Arteta also said he didn’t see it, but that he’d need to speak to Guendouzi if the claims were correct.
“When we show frustration we have to show it in the right way,” Arteta said. “I haven’t seen the images [of Guendouzi] or what happened, but we will talk about it if that is the case. Emotionally, we have to control the situations much better.”
John Cross’s report of the non-charge in Tuesday’s Daily Mirror is hilarious as you can almost hear this supposed Arsenal fan begging the FA to charge him and his head trying not to explode that they didn’t.
We still don’t know how long Bernd Leno will be out for but it is highly unlikely he will be back this season, or even this year.
Make no mistake, without Leno, Arsenal wouldn’t even be anywhere near the top half of the table this season.
If you push/shove/barge a player when he’s in the air, you are responsible for the injury that follows. Leno had every right to have ago at Maupay and football needs to get its finger out of its arse and start dealing with this sort of thing properly.
In rugby, that sort of challenge is a red card. RUGBY!
The news that Guendouzi won’t be banned is still quite surprising.
Usually, when you grab a player by the throat, it’s a red card and a ban. Then again, it’s about time Arsenal got a break from the officials who have produced some incredible stats for the club this season, as we discuss on this week’s podcast.