Jamie Carragher has stoked the Arsenal conspiracy flames on social media after what he saw in their defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday following William Saliba’s dismissal.
An uneventful opening 20 minutes saw the Gunners limited creatively by Bournemouth’s disciplined high press, the closest either side came to a goal when Raya gifted the ball with a dreadful pass only for Antoine Semenyo to thrash at the chance.
The shape of the game shifted with the sending off in the 30th minute. Evanilson still had the whole of the Arsenal half to traverse in pursuit of a looped ball over the top but crucially had manoeuvred goal side of Saliba and threatened to race clear.
Saliba was the last man – there was little chance of Ben White making up the distance to cover from right-back – and clearly dragged Evanilson to the ground, though it took a pitch-side review to convert Robert Jones’ initial yellow card to a red.
Arsenal had gone down to 10 against Brighton and Manchester City this season and each time set up defensively to preserve a result, but straight after Gabriel Martinelli spurned an excellent chance to give Arteta’s side the lead, Ryan Christie finished an off a neatly worked corner before Justin Kluivert converted a penalty to secure all three points for the Cherries.
There’s no doubt that Saliba’s dismissal was the turning point and given the Arsenal fans’ reaction to their previous two red cards this season, both of them for delaying the restart, the conspiracy theorists were out in force on social media again, paying particular mind to a camera shot that Carragher also noted.
The pundit wondered whether PGMOL chief Howard Webb was involved in the VAR U-turn after he was shown listening in to the referees’ discussions over the decision and then using his phone in the crowd.
In a now deleted X post, Carragher wrote: ‘Was Howard Webb involved in the decision making of the red card for Saliba??’
The Premier League explained the decision via their match centre social media account.
‘The referee gave Saliba a yellow card for a challenge on Evanilson,’ they wrote.
‘The VAR deemed that Saliba denied an obvious goal-scoring opportunity and recommended an on-field review. The referee then upgraded the yellow to a red card.’
READ MORE: Arsenal conspiracies powerless against mistake-ridden reality in defeat to Bournemouth
Jamie Redknapp insisted it was “definitely” the right call to dismiss Saliba.
He said on Sky Sports: “There’s absolutely no doubt if he had no put his arms on him, he [William Saliba] would have got there first. He is one of the quickest players, one of the quickest defenders. He would have at least had enough pace to get help.
“Your natural inclination is to panic, grab him and he’s thinking ‘what have I done?’ Then Gabriel went to the referee and there’s a few guilty signs. It’s definitely a foul. Ben White you could argue, can he get back in time, but my guess is no. It was definitely denying a goalscoring opportunity.”
