Alan Shearer shares whether he thinks Arsenal’s Myles Lewis-Skelly actually deserved a red card vs West Ham

Add as preferred source on Google

Myles Lewis-Skelly will perhaps still be distraught that he added to Arsenal’s woes by getting sent off in their 1-0 defeat against West Ham United.

Mohammed Kudus’ pressing caused Arsenal problems throughout the contest as Lewis-Skelly seemed to panic and lose the ball in uncharacteristic fashion after the West Ham attacker chased him down.

As Kudus won the ball, he had a clear goalscoring opportunity, with David Raya caught way up the pitch and William Saliba being far away from the versatile forward to hunt him down.

Myles Lewis-Skelly took one for the team and hacked the Ghanaian international down as the Gunners were already 1-0 down at the time.

But in doing so, the 18-year-old was eventually sent off as Jarrod Bowen’s headed goal won West Ham the game.

Lewis-Skelly was deservedly red carded against West Ham, according to former Premier League referee Mike Dean.

Alan Shearer feels Myles Lewis-Skelly’s red card during Arsenal vs West Ham was “right call”

Referee Craig Pawson initially handed Lewis-Skelly a yellow card as a potential warning.

But soon after, Pawson changed his decision as Mikel Arteta’s side were down to 10 men.

Position	Team	Played MP	Won W	Drawn D	Lost L	For GF	Against GA	Diff GD	Points Pts
1	LiverpoolLiverpool	26	18	7	1	62	26	36	61
2	ArsenalArsenal	26	15	8	3	51	23	28	53

Alan Shearer feels the decision to send Arsenal wonderkid Lewis-Skelly off against West Ham was spot on as well.

Shearer said on BBC’s Match of the Day show: “It was the right call, yeah. It was a call that VAR got right, referee didn’t give it, which okay, you can sort of understand but that sort of typified Arsenal today, getting caught on the ball.”

“But [William] Saliba’s not getting there, have a look at where [David] Raya is, the goalkeeper, so if Mohammed Kudus wins that ball and goes forward, which he will do, he can have a free shot at goal. So, correct, the referee gets sent to the screen and eventually, they got to the right decision. It was without a doubt a red card.”

Lewis-Skelly has impressed England boss Thomas Tuchel this season and while he is having a breakthrough campaign, perhaps one area where he requires a learning curve is knowing when to make such cynical challenges. While the Englishman’s red card against Wolves was harsh, his sending off against West Ham was a rash decision from him that in fairness, countless players have made as well.

Mikel Arteta on Myles Lewis-Skelly’s sending off vs West Ham

After the contest, Mikel Arteta was quizzed about his views regarding Lewis-Skelly’s sending off.

However, Arteta claimed that he had not even seen the challenge and decided to focus on his team’s inadequacies against West Ham.

The Spaniard said via HaytersTV: “No, I haven’t seen it back but honestly, I will focus on what we have to do. I don’t know if the decision was wrong or right, I haven’t seen it.”

“I don’t want to evaluate it but a lot of the things that we should have done better today, it wasn’t there.”

Ultimately, Lewis-Skelly’s red card occurred in the 73rd minute and before that, Arsenal should have performed much better than they did against West Ham, which seems to be Mikel Arteta’s sticking point.

However, Arteta was criticised by Paul Merson as well for playing Mikel Merino as a makeshift striker against the Irons as the nature of their latest result means negativity will naturally surround the Emirates Stadium.