Mikel Arteta felt he had no choice.
The Arsenal manager saw his right back Ben White receive a yellow card in the first half of the Champions League game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday, and quickly came to a decision.
White needed to be removed at halftime.
“We have played enough with 10 men in the recent period,” Arteta said with a smirk.
It is becoming abundantly clear: Arsenal has a discipline problem — and it might yet cost Arteta’s team a shot at the English Premier League title.
Arsenal has had three players sent off in the opening eight rounds of a league campaign that is seeing yellow cards being dished out at an unprecedented rate.
It continues something of a running theme under Arteta. Since he arrived as its manager in late 2019, Arsenal has collected 18 red cards in the Premier League — five more than the next team.
Tellingly for Arteta, the only games where Arsenal dropped points this season — the 1-1 home draw with Brighton, the 2-2 away draw at Manchester City and the 2-0 loss at Bournemouth on Saturday — came when the team had a player dismissed.