Arsenal defender Gabriel remained on the field after a heated forehead confrontation with Erling Haaland during Sunday\u2019s defeat to Manchester City when referee Anthony Taylor showed only yellow cards. Taylor booked both players at the scene and the incident was reviewed by VAR, with no further action taken.<\/p>\n
The Premier League\u2019s Match Center explained the decision: \u201cThe referee\u2019s call of no red card was checked and confirmed by VAR\u2014with the action from Gabriel deemed not to be excessively aggressive or violent.\u201d That assessment prevented a red card being issued and removed the possibility of an automatic three-match suspension for violent conduct.<\/p>\n
The episode attracted immediate reaction. \u201cI can\u2019t believe that that\u2019s not a red,\u201d said Gary Neville in disbelief during live Sky Sports commentary. Haaland himself suggested he could have sought a stronger response but declined to do so. \u201cI think if I fell on the floor, which I will not do unless someone really attacks me, it will maybe be a red card. I\u2019m not sure,\u201d Haaland said. \u201cBut it is what it is, I will not fall on the floor. Yellow card for me, I\u2019m not sure why, he comes up to my face. But it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the wider contest between the two men, Haaland added: \u201cI think it\u2019s always like this, a lot of fighting and things like this. It\u2019s up to others to decide if I won that battle or not. I scored the goal so I won the battle in that moment, it was a great goal, it was a decisive moment and we win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because the referees and VAR addressed the incident during the match, the Football Association cannot open a retrospective case. That means Gabriel will not face the three-match ban that would have followed a red card for violent conduct, a suspension that could otherwise have sidelined him for three of Arsenal\u2019s final five Premier League games of the season against Newcastle United, Fulham and West Ham United.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
VAR confirmed no red for Gabriel after a forehead clash with Haaland; the FA cannot reopen it. later<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1553,1558,1393],"class_list":["post-12340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-bookings","tag-brazil","tag-centre-back"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12340\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}