Agreed. What made the Arteta second yellow so frustrating (and keep in mind, he should have known better) was that Napoli were literally dragging Arsenal players to the ground and getting nothing.
I agree - nothing challenge The reffing was shocking in this round. Being in Germany we had the Dortmund game - and he might as well have been wearing a Marseille shirt
Do you have a link for this? Because if accurate - it is absurd that he would have got red for that 2nd challenge.
http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/77...EFA-Champions-League-2013-2014-Napoli-Arsenal or http://espnfc.com/us/en/gamecast/statistics/id/380696/statistics.html?soccernet=true&cc=5901
WTF! I assumed from the highlights he had "earned" it for persistent fouling. So basically he got a yellow card for each foul he made. Insane. But we knew this ref is a joke.
True. And Arteta shouldn't have been sent off. And a veteran like him was more than a bit foolish to make such a clumsy challenge from behind. (while sitting on a yellow) BUT the real question is did we lose that match because of Arteta and going down to 10 men? I'm not so sure.
The yellow card tariff is a common enough template for tilting the game. If you want to see absurdity - check out old Wolfie in the Anderlecht game.
no, the real question is would we have played any better with 11, or hell, with 12? we certainly weren't before the red, so nothing suggests we would miraculously have started playing well with 14 minutes left. you know what annoys me most? napoli weren't even that good. everton in the game before were absolutely miles better than napoli and only managed a draw.
[QUOTEAside from a few extra euros, we get nothing from advancing another round except more games on the fixture list. Bring on RM! The league is the most important thing IMO.][/QUOTE] That few extra euro is 3,900,000! And Wenger could possibly rotate the squad against a weaker team. Now we are guaranteed a crunch match!