Is the red card rule change a red herring?

On a night when Arsenal needed all the help they could get, they were afforded very little by the officials at the Emirates stadium. At 5-2 down on aggregate against a brilliant Bayern Munich team, they were playing with great verve and arguably still in the match. However, another potentially dramatic Champions League tie was effectively ruined by an avoidable sending off.

There has been the usual sense of familiarity around the Emirates this season. Defeat on the opening day of the season, immediate revival and promise extinguished by the inability to perform against or secure any great number of points from those teams around them. The now annual calling for Wenger to step down growing ever stronger. And finally, the déjà vu like deflation of stumbling out of the Champions League at the first hurdle.

Last night’s performance of bizarre 2nd leg symmetry against a Bayern Munich side who once again looked alarmingly superior as the game wore on, was eerie in its inevitability.

After a promising first half, in which the fantastic Theo Walcott had given the increasingly disgruntled home fans some optimism with a thunderous display and spectacular goal, everything once again fell hopelessly apart.

The main catalyst for the capitulation this time? The same as the last match between these sides – the departure of the brilliant Koscielny, a man almost peerless in his defensive capabilities. This time, however, it wasn’t his legs that betrayed him through injury, but a rather over zealous referee’s assistant.

Koscielny walks off after receiving his marching orders

Not the usual one on the touchline either. No, it was one of those fellows on the goal line. You know the ones? The guys who never really seem to do much and almost seem embarrassed to be there?

Straying boldly beyond the usual limits that these particular officials seem to be constrained to, the assistant in question presumably pushed the little button on his assistant stick and alerted the referee that, having given a penalty against Koscielny, he was now obliged to send him off.

But…hang on? Didn’t the rule change this season? The new FIFA ruling states that players should only be sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity if:

– The offence is holding, pulling or pushing or

– The offending player does not attempt to play the ball or there is no possibility of the player making the challenge to play the ball or

– The offence is one which is punishable by a red card wherever it occurs on the field of play (e.g. serious foul play, violent conduct and so on)

Koscielny’s offence hardly constituted any of these misdemeanours. Granted his arm was slightly raised when challenging Lewandowski, but surely this is exactly the kind of instance that the rule change was brought in to avoid – a player being triply punished (sent off, conceding a penalty and being suspended) when surely a penalty would have been ample reward for the visiting side?

The sending off effectively ended what was up until then an enthralling contest. At 1-0 up and with a full compliment of men, Arsenal had a glimmer of hope. However, reduced to ten men and without their talismanic defensive leader, coupled with gifting Bayern an away goal with the subsequently converted penalty from Lewandowski, an already wounded Arsenal were effectively dead meat.

Arsenal had no answer to Bayern’s surge after going down to ten men

If any team knows how to twist the knife, it’s this free flowing Bayern side. Once Arsenal began to push on in search of an impossible comeback, the spaces began to open up. And boy did the German side take advantage. Ruthless in their counter attacks and impressively energetic in their pressing play, the German giants ran amok.

I have lost count of the number of times a great match has been altered this way, and it is surely not good for the game as a spectator sport. If a player does something that warrants a red card (violent conduct, two clear cut bookable offences) then he is to blame for his side’s impaired numbers forthwith and the referee has no choice but to send him off.

However, surely another review is needed of this now over-complicated professional foul law, to ensure that a penalty is enough punishment, and that the contest can continue evenly and therefore remain a contest.