Mikel Arteta criticized his team constantly being awarded red cards as he admits it will be difficult for them to win games with 10 men.
Arsenal has collected the most red cards since Mikel Arteta took over at the Emirates with his team receiving a total of 14 red cards, 6 more than the second club Southampton.
The year 2022 has been particularly bad as Arsenal have had three players sent off in four games including Gabriel Magalhães against Manchester City, Granit Xhaka got sent off in the first leg of their EFL cup semi final clash against Liverpool while Thomas Partey suffered the same fate in the returning leg.
Arteta talking before the game against Burnley about what he wants the players to focus on he said, “[We should focus on] controlling the things that we can control,”
“We cannot win football matches with 10 players, it’s extremely difficult”
“We know that, and when we have moments, we have to kill the opponents and it’s not been the case in recent matches and we have had some big performances, but we did not get results”
“Results are part of the game, against Forest is a different story. The rest of the games there is very little to tell the team, but we have to find different ways or a different way to end up winning and getting the points.”
The Spaniard further added and said
“A different way” would appear to keep all 11 players on the pitch, as it is worth noting that in all 14 games we were a man down, we did not win one of them!”
Arsenal will look to get back to winning ways when they take on struggling Burnley at the Emirates.