No matter how much I might try to today, there is absolutely no way of looking at that game yesterday any other way than through the lens of that 49th minute ‘incident’ featuring Veltman and Rice. As you will already know, on a yellow, Rice and Veltman came together by the corner flag and a free kick was called. With Veltman behind Rice he rolled the ball to Rice’s path – knowing exactly what he was doing – then kicking the ball and following through on Rice to swipe him to the ground.

It was pre-meditated, it was fully intentioned, it was a professional footballer looking to provoke. The mistake Rice made, was to offer the slightest of touches on the ball as it was rolling, which gave Chris Kavanagh – intent on refereeing two sides on the pitch very differently – all the opportunity he needed to give Rice the second yellow (he’d deserved the first, by the way).

Rice has said he holds his hands up and it was naive of him, but that’s his public commentary, because he knows that this is an incident that we will never see again. And in fact, across the Premier League weekend this weekend, we have indeed not seen happen in any other game.

This referee – as appalling as he is – has never done that before. Last weekend he was the one that allowed Joelinton to clothesline Neto. Two year’s ago he was the one who saw Declan Rice flick the ball away against Granit Xhaka whilst playing for West Ham. There was no need to say or do anything that day. But yesterday he decided to change that approach and fundamentally change a football match that Arsenal were fully in control of.

We were already one up. We had created a ton of chances. We had forced Verbruggen in to a number of smart – if not spectacular- saves. At halftime Brighton had created barely anything; their xG was at 0.08 – which means we’d completely limited them and we started off the second half in the same fashion.

Kai Havertz had his second goal of the season after good work from Saka to challenge Dunk, followed by the perfect ball to the German to set up a sumptuous goal to get us up and running. It was deserved, it was class, it was us showing just how good we are. Every Arsenal fan was happy and we were looking at extending that lead and securing the points in the second half. And as I and James both said on the Same Old Arsenal pod this morning, I was convinced that we were going to replicate the perfection of a performance as we did last season.

And then everything changed. Kavanagh – who had been giving Brighton 60-70% of decisions up until that point anyway – decided that he wanted to make an impact on the game, even though he didn’t have to. Common sense with decisions like that yesterday should always prevail; last weekend with Saliba, McGinn and White in that incident saw common sense do so, but Chris Kavanagh showed just what sort of poor officiating he delivers on a frequent basis by showing he had no intention of applying some logic to a situation.

I keep hearing this “letter of the law” phrase trotted out for the incident. It is more flawed as an argument than can ever be imagined. And here’s why:

  1. By the letter of the law, Joao Pedro should have been booked for kicking the ball away. He wasn’t.
  2. By the letter of the law, Hinzelwood should have received a booking for a shirt pull on Saka in the first half. He wasn’t.
  3. By the letter of the law, perhaps the high boot on Odegaard should have been chalked up as dangerous play, the Brighton player could/should have been sent off. He wasn’t.
  4. By the letter of the law, Veltman shouldn’t have taken the free kick from the position he took it from – the ball was about 10 yards back. He didn’t.
  5. By the letter of the law, you can’t strike a moving ball as a free kick. He did.
  6. By the letter of the law, his intention on Rice was to kick through him, so violent conduct comes in to play and he should have been given a red card. He didn’t.

This is absolutely farcical that the ‘letter of the law’ seems to have been arbitrarily applied. And we’re not even talking about separate dates and separate minutes.

THIS IS THE SAME GAME.

It was just plain wrong. It was an example of two teams being refereed differently. It made a fundamental impact on the football match.

After that the game became attack versus defence and Brighton – a possession-based team and one of the better teams in the league – were always going to dominate. Had that incident not happened, or had it been refereed properly and how 99 time ms out of 100 I suspect it would have been, then we would all be talking a different story today.

Arsenal seem to be the test case for ‘things you only ever see once’ and frankly, we Arsenal fans are all sick of it.

  • Tomiyasu at Palace last season getting a yellow card for holding on to the ball for seven seconds.
  • Granit Xhaka against Swansea.
  • Martinelli two yellows in one move. Against Wolves.
  • referee ‘forgets’ to draw lines against Brentford.
  • apologies for ‘interfering’ with decision when they shouldn’t against United at OT – for Martinelli’s goal where Odegaard was adjudged to have fouled Erikson.

What happened yesterday won’t happen again. Yet we are the ones who have to deal with it. Last season we lost the title on two points. What happens if the same happens this season?

We can talk about the defending for the Brighton goal, for sure, and I think Partey could do better with tracking Joao Pedro, but aside from that you cannot argue that this whole match was defined by a referee who wanted to make a name for himself. It’s pathetic, it’s infuriating, it’s unfair. I said it yesterday on social media and I’ll say it again today:

This sort of stuff doesn’t happen against 115 Charges FC.

But it does happen to us. Quite frequently (Kai Havertz getting chokeslammed two weeks ago, anyone?).

And we’re doubly punished now, because we go in to the North London Derby away from home without one of our key defensive pillars. Rice missing for that game will be massive.

I’m tired. I’m tired of the PGMOL. I’m tired of the same conversations about the same group of officials. I’m tired of the lack of change or ownership of accountability (we’ll be seeing referees and the PGMOL talk to us about ‘good process’ here for sure over the next few days). I’m tired of the inevitability of this stuff happening again.

Be back tomorrow with more Arsenal thoughts. Catch you all then.