Ray Parlour and Michael Owen agreed that it was ‘very harsh’ to send Takehiro Tomiyasu off during Arsenal’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Monday night.
The Japan international was first shown a yellow card for timewasting, before he was shown a second yellow card for stopping Jordan Ayew from turning and getting away from him by tugging his shirt, or so people thought.
But as the replays popped up, it clearly showed that Takehiro Tomiyasu hardly touched the Crystal Palace man and it was wrong to send the Arsenal fullback off.
That was echoed by Ray Parlour and Michael Owen, with the former stating that there was ‘no contact whatsoever’ from Tomiyasu on his opponent, as he told Premier League Productions (21/08/23 at 10:15 pm).
Following Jurrien Timber’s long-term injury, this was Tomiyasu’s first start of the new Premier League campaign and he is suspended already.
It means that Mikel Arteta has to, once again, shuffle his pack, with the London club welcoming Marco Silva’s Fulham this Saturday at the Emirates.
“I can only say, is he (Ayew) running into space here and getting away?” asked Parlour. “Would Saliba have got across? Maybe, he would have done. It looks like he would have done with his pace.
“At first, I thought he tugged his shirt. Ayew turns and there is no real contact there. Ayew just falls to the ground. That’s a really harsh yellow card. There’s no contact whatsoever, it looks like he’s tripped over his own feet, in fact. I thought that was very harsh.”
Owen added: “I had the exact same first impression (that Tomiyasu tugged Ayew’s shirt), you are in trouble and you are going to get sent off.
“But when I look at the replay. I find it very, very harsh that he has been sent off.”
First yellow card for timewasting…
Yes, Tomiyasu shouldn’t have been shown a second yellow card because Ayew did very well to buy that foul, but he can have no complaints about the first yellow.
Even though he only had the ball in his hands for eight seconds, his problem is that Kai Havertz held onto the ball for a similar amount of time before opting against taking the throw and giving it to Tomiyasu instead.
It’s pretty clear, referees are no longer going to give an inch when it comes to timewasting because they’ll book players much quicker now and just add more minutes during stoppage time.
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