IAN LADYMAN: Mateo Kovacic avoiding a red card became a mere footnote after Arsenal’s win but felt like another moment where the system failed… if we want consistency, these coals must be raked over

• Mateo Kovacic should arguably have been sent off on two occasions at Arsenal 
• The decision not to show him a red card felt like an error and yet another failure
• Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport’s podcast ‘It’s All Kicking Off!’ 

The thing about football results is that they have the capacity to bury good stories.

This one finished with the Emirates lit up by adrenaline and energy. My goodness, they celebrated this one in north London and good on them. Arsenal have waited a while to land one on the jaw – or right in the face as Nathan Ake would attest – of Manchester City. When victory came, it meant everything it should.

The story that became a footnote, however, was an important one. Mateo Kovacic and match referee Michael Oliver. What on earth went on there? Maybe Tuesday night’s ‘Match Officials Mic’d Up’ show will tell us. PGMOL head Howard Webb will feature and as usual there will be explaining to do.

It’s a decent idea in principle, this TV show. It’s all part of the PGMOL’s push for transparency. It’s what we have asked for isn’t it?

Personally, I am not a fan and I haven’t even watched it yet. Referees make the same number of mistakes as everybody else in sport and should probably be allowed to move on without the nation poring over every slo-mo and VAR studio obscenity.

The failure to send off Mateo Kovacic in Man City’s defeat by Arsenal is now a mere footnote

The midfielder should arguably have been sent off on two occasions for two rash challenges

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But we are here now. The mob have got their wish so maybe we will discover the rationale that allowed City midfielder Kovacic to remain on the field in the first half when arguably he should have been sent off twice, if indeed that’s possible.

Kovacic’s first big moment arrived around the half hour mark when he lunged for the ball only to miss it and land with his studs on Martin Odegaard’s ankle. Oliver awarded a yellow card but the challenge looked horrible on the replays. The Croatian may have been going for the ball but was off the ground and, as such, hardly in control and that’s the important part of the law.

The VAR officials had a look but – unlike at Tottenham eight days’ earlier when Liverpool’s Curtis Jones was sent off – they did not invite Oliver to take a look at the pitch side monitor. Check complete. Yellow card.

It felt like an error and worse was to come. A few minutes later, Kovacic went hunting again. This time Declan Rice was in his sights and once again he was late. No contact with the ball and plenty with Rice who was felled like a sapling before a bulldozer.

A second yellow card – and a long walk – seemed inevitable but it didn’t come. Why not? Because the threshold for a second yellow has to be higher than for the first? Well, it was hard to make a case even on the back of that skewed and flawed rationale.

Kovacic avoiding punishment felt like an error and represented a moment the system failed

Red cards remain subjective calls but referee Michael Oliver has now avoided the headlines

So Kovacic stayed on and City stayed in the game. Arsenal went on to win it so the story slipped from the top of the news bulletins and off the back pages and down in to that section of the match reports where some readers and listeners never even venture.

It makes it no less important, though. It felt like yet another moment – or moments – where the system failed.

Fouls and red cards and handballs remain subjective calls, of course. It’s how it should be. No amount of technology can take the place of somebody making a judgement call. But there are too many of these for the game’s good at the moment and Oliver will perhaps be thankful he got home with Arsenal fans talking about winning goal scorer Gabriel Martinelli and not him.

On TV, as usual, there were no punches pulled.

Gary Neville – a former defender and decent tackler – said on Sky’s commentary of the second challenge: ‘Oh, no. I think he’s lucky. I think he’s very lucky. I think he gets Declan Rice’s right foot. He does.

‘What is he doing? I think he should be off. It’s madness from Kovacic. The first one was close. That one was just crazy.’

There were no punches pulled on TV, though Arsenal’s win pushed the story down the pages

For balance Sky had dragged a former Arsenal player in to their coverage, too, and Theo Walcott was in little doubt about what he had seen.

‘As soon as it went to VAR, I thought, and I’ve seen it slowed down, red card straight away,’ Walcott said.

‘You can see the way he gets really low on the ankle. For me, it’s a red card. I don’t think there’s any question.

‘That’s not me putting my Arsenal head on, I genuinely think that’s endangering the player.’

Afterwards Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was asked about the issue and – to paraphrase – said he hadn’t seen any replays but that it had ended up not mattering.

‘I’m not bothered,’ he said.

Mikel Arteta was asked about the incidents but admitted they had ended up not mattering

And this is what happens when games turn and results go your way. Fury turns to ambivalence and that hastily typed email to the PGMOL is deleted and the bone-shattering evisceration of a referee to a TV camera turns in to a shrug of the shoulders.

It’s best that we don’t forget, though. If we want the level of consistency we say we do then I suppose coals like this should be raked over.

So that will be for Webb on television on Tuesday night. In the meantime, City find themselves in the unusual position of having lost two league games on the spin for the first time since 2018 and this is arguably good for the Premier League if not for Pep Guardiola’s ambitions of winning an unprecedented four titles in arow.

City looked rather imperious earlier in the season but indifferent performances at Wolves and now here have driven a bit of a hole through that. They remain the team to beat. There is a Manchester derby on the horizon and United should probably be worried.

All that being said, Guardiola may well spend some of the international break trying to work out what his best team is. The one that laboured at the Emirates certainly didn’t look like being it. One shot on target? That’s not like a Guardiola team at all. No red cards? That was the fortunate bit.

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