Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher has agreed with the decision to give Myles Lewis-Skelly a red card during Arsenal’s 1-0 defeat against West Ham on Saturday.
Lewis-Skelly was sent off in the 73rd minute after bringing down Mohammed Kudus as the Ghanaian looked to be on the counter attack. Referee Craig Pawson initially gave the 18-year-old a yellow card, but VAR advised him to go over and have a look at the incident again on the pitch-side monitor.
After a short check, Pawson decided to upgrade his yellow card to a red card as Lewis-Skelly was handed his marching orders. He and VAR felt that Lewis-Skelly was denying a goal-scoring opportunity.
As David Raya was so far out of his goal and the covering defender was nowhere near Kudus, Gallagher felt it was a “really good VAR intervention” to advise Pawson to look at the monitor and send him off.
Reacting to the decision, Gallagher told Sky Sports: “This is a really, really good VAR intervention. I understand why the referee thinks he’s in his own half.
“The keeper has come so far out. The defender is a red herring, he’s so far away and he’s not going to catch him. Kudus just has to clip the ball over [David] Raya’s head and he’s got a goal-scoring opportunity.”
Lewis-Skelly’s red card came just 17 minutes after he came on. The teenager replaced Riccardo Calafiori as Arsenal tried to mount a comeback after Jarrod Bowen put West Ham ahead in the first-half.
Arsenal’s task to get back into the game was made harder after Lewis-Skelly was sent off, and Mikel Arteta’s men were unable to break down a solid West Ham rear-guard as they suffered their first Premier League defeat since November. It’s a major blow for the Gunners as they bid to catch Liverpool, who moved 11 points clear at the top with a comfortable 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday.
Speaking after his side’s defeat against West Ham, Arteta was left furious. He said in his post-match press conference: “Very disappointed, obviously very angry as well. I think we have to congratulate West Ham for the victory and the game that they played but I think a lot on our side we never got right.
“It didn’t allow us to get enough momentum, enough sequence of play with positive action that could deliver into situations of threat for there and even though all the ball we had, then 20 shots, I never felt that we were at the standards or the levels we needed to have more threat and then don’t allow them to run.
“We lost a lot of balls and we allowed West Ham to run into very dangerous positions.”
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