It was a bad weekend game for Arsenal football and its supporters all over the world following their 1-1 draw against Brighton at the Emirates stadium in the first game of the weekend.
The game which was actually in Arsenal’s favour after Kai Havertz had put them ahead, quickly into the second half, barely played five minutes into the second half when Declan Rice got his red card after receiving his second yellow card of the game for nudging the ball a little.
Meanwhile, about two Brighton players had done same in the first half and the referee did nothing about it, only for him to now punish Rice for a similar stuff, even when Rice’s own was even fair compared to that of the Brighton players.
Arsenal eventually drew the game 1-1, dropping two points already into the new season. Now, Rice has offered apology over the incident especially as his team couldn’t secure all three points in the end.
He took responsibility for his actions and the eventual outcome, but Arsenal fans are not really accepting the apology from one of their key players.
In his exact words: “I think from my behalf, that’s my first sending off in my career, so I just wanted to apologise obviously to my teammates, which I’ve done, and to the fans“.
“When you get sent off, it’s never nice, you get a sense of guilt over you, and I was lucky today that my teammates really helped me out and we didn’t lose the game. I’ll learn from it.”
But as you can rightly see from the reactions and comments of the club’s supporters, they are not buying the apology from Rice, on the ground that he was partly innocent. They blamed the whole thing on the center referee, Chris Kavanagh.
Catch up with some of the comments from some Arsenal supporters after Rice tendered his apology over the red card incident…
“Didn’t do anything wrong that was petty from the ref, it’s refs life this that ruin the game and deserve to be sacked,” X user Jose Rodrigues @jose231987.
“Even though it’s hard, we understand, in the future, be careful if the match is led by a bastard referee like the one we saw today,” @Asyaladcacap.
“But the red card is wrong official decision,” @Chikams2∅∅3.
“He got hard done by! Not his fault that openly corrupt refs officiate in this corrupt anti-Arsenal league. I’m sick of this idiots at PGMOL,” @thamackdaddy1.
“Keep heads up mate, the ref is just blatan bollock,” Don Arsenal @donlino_id.
“That fucking cunt of a ref should be apologizing,” @parker9397984ø.
“You did nothing. Was never your mistake to get sent off. It was a blatant joke from the referee,” Mera arsenalawi @MeraArsenalawi.
“Chin up Declan that snub Ref will pay for his sins,” @nolimit4L7
“You was not the culprit. The referee was bias.Veltman knew what he was doing. He was the villian,” Dee Potts @DeePotts177116.
“That was a ridiculous red card indeed… because it doesn’t worth it and it is very bad if FIFA won’t sanctions the for the stupid decision and VAR didn’t even check it…it is obvious they are against Arsenal,” @itz_muhmeen.
“This apology should be from Chris Whatever is surname is! It was apparent, the ball was still rolling, the ball was some meters away from the area where the foul occurred, the referee hasn’t blown the whistle, and more. The red card must be terminated. Arsenal should appeal,” Amos Adedoyin @Amosdedoyin.
Well, there were lots of decision inconsistencies from the referee, he actually looked either biased or overwhelmed by the actions from the game.
But on the other, I still don’t understand why players still go to kick the balls after the whistle had gone, knowing fully when about the consequences. Especially when you are already on a yellow card just like in the case of Declan Rice. Some of these players should do better please.
