Arsenal have lodged an appeal against the red card shown to David Luiz in Tuesday's loss to Wolves, Mikel Arteta has confirmed.
The defender was shown a straight red card after making minimal contact with Willian Jose's heel on the stroke of half-time and VAR upheld the decision made by refereee Craig Pawson.
Ruben Neves converted the resulting penalty to cancel out Nicolas Pepe's opener and Joao Moutinho secured the three points for Wolves, as Arsenal finished with nine men after Bernd Leno was dismissed for inexplicably handling outside his area.
Arteta did not feel David Luiz could be solely blamed for leaving his team-mates a player short and hoped to hear back on an appeal against the sending off on Thursday.
"I am very hopeful and that's why we put the appeal on, we went through the images and we think that the red card should be overruled, that's why we put in the appeal," Arteta said ahead of Saturday's meeting with Aston Villa.
"I don't know how long it will take but hopefully today we will have more information.
"We know the law. For me, it's more about the decision, and what happens in that instance. There was a very similar incident, even though David is behind him and against Manchester United he was on the side of the player, it completely changes the angle and how much it affects the players ability to finish the action, but still a similar situation. I think they will look at it.
"You look at the two images we can have a long, long debate here. Just to put the finger on David, in my opinion, is not fair."
Arsenal have received a Premier League-high of five red cards this season but Arteta is not concerned by a potential lack of discipline in his squad.
The only dismissals that truly bothered him were the avoidable ones dished out to Pepe at Leeds United and Granit Xhaka against Burnley, where incidents away from the ball ended their outings early.
"When I was worried about the discipline it was on two occasions, with Nico and with Granit. We should avoid that," said Arteta.
"There are other ones where in a split second you have to make a decision, the referee has to make a decision as well, and there is much less to control from our side.
"What is clear is when you have five red cards in this period you will lose a lot of points. If we had some of those points we would be in a completely different position on the table.
"No team with five red cards is on top of the table, it doesn't happen."
Dave Challinor talks up Stockport hat-trick hero Isaac Olaofe
Stockport boss Dave Challinor showered praise on hat-trick hero Isaac Olaofe after his side comprehensively thumped Wrexham 5-0.
Olaofe, signed from Millwall in January, bagged his first English Football League treble in front of a sold-out Edgeley Park.
Challinor said: “Tanto is still young to the Football League, and he took himself out of his comfort zone down south to join us in January.
“But he’s been great ever since. He’s worked hard, backed himself, and he’s got a really bright future in the game.
“He maybe still needs to sharpen up a little bit, but he’s got all the raw attributes and the pace and power you need to be a successful striker at this level and above.
“He was brilliant today, and this will give him the self-belief you need as a striker.
“I’m really pleased for him, because he’s a really nice kid who looks after his family, and he’s a popular member of the squad.”
County soared to their third straight win in breathtaking style.
Challinor added: “I’m most pleased that we’ve been able to back up our last two wins with a performance like this.
“It’s a bit of a statement win, and one we thoroughly deserved.
“Even at half-time I didn’t necessarily feel comfortable because situations can change in a milli-second, but we kept asking questions in the second half and we got our rewards.”
Two from Olaofe and Louie Barry’s sixth goal in six matches had the hosts in cruise control by half-time.
Olaofe headed home his third shortly after the restart, before substitute Paddy Madden wrapped up a huge win for the hosts.
Wrexham crashed spectacularly to a first away defeat of the season, and a first loss since the opening day.
Boss Phil Parkinson appeared unsurprisingly perplexed.
He said: “So many times we’ve given the ball away far too cheaply, and that’s very frustrating for us. We put ourselves under too much pressure too often, and Stockport have capitalised.
“The players have got to learn not to give the ball away in areas which the opposition can hurt us. We were sloppy throughout, and we’ve got to take our medicine tonight.
“It’s a bit baffling because we’ve done OK on the road so far this season, but credit to Stockport – they were a yard quicker and a yard sharper than us.
“Too many of our individual performances were well below par. We got ourselves into some good situations, but again, too often our decision-making wasn’t good enough.
“We broke into the final third often enough, but some of our delivery just wasn’t good enough, and this is the result. We’ve got to shake this off quickly, and go again.”
Richie Wellens relieved after Leyton Orient made to scrap for Shrewsbury win
Leyton Orient boss Richie Wellens acknowledged his side were made to battle hard before emerging with a 1-0 home win over Shrewsbury.
Orient recorded their third league win of the season to leapfrog their opponents and move into 15th place in League One thanks to a fourth goal of the season from striker Ruel Sotiriou.
The visitors had made the early running with O’s goalkeeper Sol Brynn producing an outstanding save to deny Max Mata.
But Sotiriou broke the deadlock after 20 minutes with a powerful strike into the roof of the net that was to prove the defining moment of the match.
Wellens said: “There has been times this year when we have been really good and things haven’t gone our way but today we had to really fight and scrap for that win.
“At the end of the game, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“We have to give Shrewsbury some credit because whilst we started on the back foot, they started really, really well.
“Maybe a draw was a fair result or maybe we could have taken the chances at the end but we could have been 2-0 down.
“We had a bit of luck with the goal but credit to Ruel Sotiriou because he was in the right place at the right time. We were nowhere near as smooth or as cohesive as we wanted to be.
“But we had a good save from our goalkeeper which is what he’s there for and we won a lot of the first contacts and second balls.
“Overall, it’s a good win.”
Shrews manager Matt Taylor admitted his side’s profligacy in front of goal proved costly.
He said: “It’s very frustrating to go home empty-handed to be polite about it.
“What I think we did was to dominate a game of football where we created some very good opportunities which we have to take.
“We didn’t and when you do that you run the risk but we didn’t take our chances. If you look at the first 20 minutes in isolation, we should score three goals and I think they were big chances.
“The opposition got lucky for their goal with a bounce which went through and they score with the only shot on target they created but that’s the way it’s going for us at the moment.
“I can’t knock the performance overall, though. I don’t have anything negative to say about that. We were excellent to a man.
“Our application and our commitment was there but we can’t go away and create the chances we did and not take them.”
Ten-man Morecambe hold Swindon
Ten-man Morecambe denied Swindon another victory with a late Ethan Walker goal rescuing a 2-2 draw.
The Robins looked set to maintain their excellent start to the season when they went 2-1 ahead on the hour and Morecambe saw Yann Songo’o sent off but Derek Adams’ men never gave up and claimed a well-earned point.
Swindon took the lead in the 12th minute with a well-worked goal after 12 minutes when Jake Young’s cross found the unmarked Dan Kemp, who headed home from six yards out.
The Shrimps should have levelled a minute later. Tom Bloxham’s shot was parried by Murphy Mahoney and Songo’o could only hit the rebound against the post from close range.
Swindon then missed a great chance to double their advantage on the half hour when Young had a free header in the six-yard box but could only direct his effort straight at Stuart Moore.
He was made to pay when Morecambe levelled seconds later as Tom Bloxham crossed to the far post for Jake Taylor to head past Mahoney at full stretch.
Swindon took the lead again after 57 minutes when Austin sent Moore the wrong way from the spot after Songo’o had brought down last man Kemp and saw red.
Swindon pressed for a third but it was Morecambe who hit the target 10 minutes from time when Donald Love threaded a ball through to substitute Walker who slid the ball under Mahoney.
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