Arsenal’s Shkodran Mustafi woke up Wednesday morning with two holes in his face after receiving a Jamie Vardy boot to the side of his head during Tuesday’s match. The match between Arsenal and Leicester City ended 1-1 after Vardy scored the Foxes’ equalizer in the final moments of the match. Some argue the Leicester striker shouldn’t have been on the field after the incident with Mustafi before halftime.
Here is the controversial moment between Vardy and Mustafi in the 45th minute:
They say that actions like this always look worse in slow motion, but even that excuse might not save Vardy in this instance. For any person who has ever fallen over, how often do you lash your leg out to the side while going to the ground? Almost never? Weird.
Many fans speculated Vardy intentionally lashed out in desperation to get a nick on Mustafi but wasn’t expecting to catch the Arsenal defender’s face. Vardy immediately appears apologetic after putting his metal studs into Mustafi.
Neither the referee nor VAR reviewed the incident or took any action and played on. Ironically, VAR did review and send off Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah later in the match.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said in an interview after the match that if Nketiah is sent off for his challenge then Vardy should have seen red too.
"It can be a red card, but Leicester has to play with 10 men after 42 minutes. One challenge between the 40th and 45 minutes"
Mikel Arteta believes Leicester City should've had a red card as well pic.twitter.com/t3swrS2NuY— Football Daily (@footballdaily) July 7, 2020
Mustafi tweeted the day after the match pictures of his injuries and argued Arsenal deserved to come away with three points.
There is nothing more painful than not winning a game you deserved to win #SM20 pic.twitter.com/Vnz0OZjmcG
— Shkodran Mustafi (@MustafiOfficial) July 8, 2020
