Earlier in the week Arsenal beat the Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0. Just into the second half, Gabriel Martinelli pushed down a Wolverhampton player taking a quick throw-in. The referee didn't blow the whistle, he motioned ADVANTAGE with his arms.
THE REFEREE MADE THE CORRECT CALL.
Literally 2 seconds later, Martinelli chased down the ball handler and pushed him down from behind, making no attempt on the ball. The referee frantically chased down the play and stopped action as soon as the Wolverhampton forward hit the ground. The referee gave a yellow card for the first play and then the referee gave a yellow card for the second play, resulting in a red.
THE REFEREE MADE THE CORRECT CALL ON BOTH PLAYS. TEXTBOOK REFEREEING.
Why am I writing an article about how right a referee was? Because days later, I am still steamed about the Mirror UK questioning the call as overkill. Apparently Tom Blow, sportswriter for the Mirror, has never played soccer.
A bunch of Arsenal fans chalked the calls up to home field advantage. That I understand, they were being homers. But the Mirror?
The Daily Mail had it right: "Arsenal have 15 red cards in all competitions during Mikel Arteta's tenure, 7 more than any other Premier League side." They know that Martinelli is a punk, led by a punk coach in Mikel Arteta.
When you're at a disadvantage in soccer and you know the other team is simply better, sometimes you have to mix it up to slow the pace of play to stay in the game. That's being scrappy or tenacious. When you're the eighth richest soccer team in the world and your owner is worth $10 billion and every third game you're knocking out a red card, you're a team of assholes.