Leicester boss complains about incident that “worried” Mikel Arteta | OneFootball

Steve Cooper was unhappy with the referee during Leicester City’s defeat to Arsenal on Saturday, and Mikel Arteta has admitted one incident worried him.

LONDON, ENGLAND: Steve Cooper, Manager of Leicester City, reacts during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Leicester City FC at Emirates Stadium on September 28, 2024. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Arsenal secured a 4-2 win over Leicester City on Saturday, grabbing a couple of goals in injury time after conceding a two-goal lead earlier in the match.

The Gunners managed to keep 11 players on the pitch for this one, but Steve Cooper suggested afterwards that he thought they should have had a player sent off for the third time in four league games, as well as having one goal disallowed.

“I don’t want to make the headlines around referees because I’m trying to take responsibility for a team trying to do better in the Premier League,” Cooper began.

“But it’s a clear foul on [Jamie Vardy] for the first goal, and the left-back (Riccardo Calafiori) has to get sent off for a second yellow, but there’s so much more we could say.”

LONDON, ENGLAND: Riccardo Calafiori of Arsenal takes throw-in during the pre-season friendly match between Arsenal and Olympique Lyonnais at Emirates Stadium on August 11, 2024. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)

On the second point at least, Mikel Arteta admitted he was also concerned about a potential red card for Calafiori.

“I haven’t seen the action but I got really worried when that happened because he gave the foul, but I haven’t seen the replay,” Arteta said in his post-match press conference.

It was certainly one where Arsenal fans would have been fearing the worst. The foul was fairly innocuous, but given it broke up a potential counter-attack, it would have been hard to argue with a yellow card.

Though perhaps Calafiori can feel hard done by to have been on a yellow in the first place. His first booking was for a fair challenge that was hardly even a foul, let alone a yellow card.

LONDON, ENGLAND: Steve Cooper, Manager of Leicester City, reacts during the Premier League match between Arsenal FC and Leicester City FC at Emirates Stadium on September 28, 2024. (Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

As for the other incident Cooper referenced, the supposed ‘foul’ on Vardy would have been a very soft one.

The striker himself was very physical with the Arsenal defence on the day, as you’d expect, and this was just one incident where he’d lost that physical battle.

Cooper was likely particularly frustrated about that one because both he and Vardy were booked for complaining about the goal in the immediate aftermath.

Either incident being penalised would have been an extremely strict application of the letter of the law with no regard for the context of the contest. In other words, it would have been entirely in keeping with how Premier League officiating has gone so far this season.