Arsenal have lodged an appeal against Myles Lewis-Skelly’s controversial red card in Saturday’s victory at Wolves.
Lewis-Skelly was shown a straight red card midway through the first half of the Premier League meeting at Molineux, following a cynical foul on Matt Doherty on the edge of the home box.
Arsenal’s players were left visibly stunned by referee Michael Oliver’s shock decision, but the dismissal was confirmed by VAR Darren England, who felt the challenge constituted “serious foul play”.
The call was met with almost universal criticism from pundits and commentators, with Gunners boss Mikel Arteta left “absolutely fuming”, despite Riccardo Calafiori’s strike giving his side a vital 1-0 victory after Wolves had themselves been reduced to 10 men.
Asked at full-time whether Arsenal planned to appeal against the decision, Arteta said: "That's for the club to decide what is the best decision. It's that obvious that maybe we don't even need to.”
As it stands, academy graduate Lewis-Skelly will serve a three-game ban, ruling him out of key Premier League games against Manchester City and Leicester, as well as the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Newcastle, where the Gunners are seeking to overturn a 2-0 deficit.
If successful, though, their appeal could see the full-back’s punishment dropped entirely. Earlier this season, Manchester United succeeded in an appeal to have Bruno Fernandes’s three-match ban rescinded after he was sent off in a 3-1 defeat to Tottenham.
Police are investigating “threats and abuse” directed at referee Oliver, the PGMOL has said.
