Former Arsenal and Man City stars disagree over Mateo Kovacic controversy

Theo Walcott and Micah Richards disagreed over a controversial yellow card shown to Manchester City star Mateo Kovacic during the first-half of Sunday’s Premier League clash with Arsenal.

The City midfielder was cautioned just before the half-hour mark at the Emirates Stadium after a nasty-looking challenge on Gunners captain Martin Odegaard. On-field referee Michael Oliver initially showed a yellow card as VAR official John Brooks checked the incident for dangerous play.

However, the on-field decision stood, much to the surprise of former Arsenal and England winger Walcott.

“As soon as it went to VAR, and I saw it slowed down, I thought red card,” he told Sky Sports.

“It’s a nasty tackle when you see how he hits him on the ankle. For me, it’s a red card without any question and that’s not me with my Arsenal head on. I genuinely think that’s endangering the player.”

Fellow pundit Richards was not so sure over the call for a red card and was adamant a less severe punishment was ‘the right decision’ by the match officials.

“Theo has a point,” explained the former City star.

“As a defender, it’s slowed down here so it looks worse of course, but I think yellow card is the right decision on this one because of the force he was going at, it always looks worse on a slow replay.

“At full speed, it did look bad, but I thought yellow was the right decision.”

As the conversation moved on to a second incident involving the City midfielder, the duo did agree the Croatian star should have been shown a second yellow card just six minutes after his first when he caught Declan Rice with another poor challenge.

Richards said: “This is where they got it wrong because I think that is a yellow card and Kovacic should have seen red. You see he’s gone for the ball, he gets the bottom of his ankle and I think that is a second yellow card.”

Walcott replied: “I have to agree, it’s a yellow card but he shouldn’t have been on the pitch anyway.”