William Saliba to Miss Liverpool Game After Arsenal Decide Not to Appeal Red Card

Mikel Arteta has been dealt another blow ahead of the Premier League game versus Liverpool after Arsenal decided not to appeal William Saliba's red card he picked up against Bournemouth.

Arsenal's William Saliba and Mikel Arteta vs Bournemouth / IMAGO / Pro Sports Images

On Saturday, Arsenal suffered a 2-0 loss against Bournemouth, however, the result arguably wasn't the worst thing to come out of the game.

In the 30th minute, William Saliba, who has been the Gunners standout player the last couple of years, dragged down Cherries striker Evanilson whilst he was through on goal.

Despite only receiving a yellow card originally, Robert Jones reviewed his decision at the VAR monitor and changed the booking to a red card due to the denial of a goal-scoring opportunity.

At the time, this wasn't a very controversial decision, however, on Super Sunday in the Liverpool v Chelsea game, an almost identical situation occurred.

Even though Salbia was sent off for a similar offence the day before, Chelsea defender Tosin Adarabioyo only received a yellow card for pulling Diogo Jota down on the halfway line when he was the last man.

The referee on Merseyside, John Brooks, was not told to review his decision on the field which left many Arsenal fans, and even the manager, feeling hard done by, and not for the first time this season.

Yesterday, during his Champions League press conference ahead of tonight's game against Shakhtar Donetsk, Mikel Arteta revealed that the club were potentially looking to appeal the red card.

“I will leave that more to the club. To understand the circumstances and as well other examples that are very clear in the same position.”

However, according to Sky Sports, Arsenal are now not planning to appeal the decision despite Arteta's comments on the situation.

Saliba has arguably been the London club's most important player this season, very rarely letting them down and combining with Gabriel to make a formidable defensive partnership.

It looks like Ben White, Jakub Kiwior or Riccardo Calafiori will have to fill in a centre-back with Oleksandr Zinchenko potentially having to play left-back, something that Mohamed Salah will no doubt be liking the idea of.