Ian Wright reacts on Twitter to Maitland-Niles being sent-off during Arsenal defeat

Ian Wright has blasted the decision to send off Ainsley Maitland-Niles during Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat to Leicester City at the King Power Stadium this afternoon.

The versatile youngster was once again deployed in an unfamiliar right-back role against Leicester and was given a tough time up against the likes of James Maddison and Jamie Vardy.

Maitland-Niles was under pressure from the opening minutes as he was shown a harsh yellow card for a minor block early on before being shown a second booking in the 36th minute following a challenge with Maddison in the centre circle.

Replays showed there was very little contact and the Leicester man had gone down way too easily clutching his leg, so it was understandable that Arsenal boss Unai Emery was incensed on the touchline.

The Spaniard wasn’t the only one to think it was a harsh dismissal from referee Michael Oliver as former Arsenal striker Ian Wright took to Twitter to blast the decision saying it was ‘never a sending off!’ because the Arsenal man ‘never touched him’.

Never a sending off !!! Didn’t touch him. ?

— Ian Wright (@IanWright0) April 28, 2019

There is no doubt it was an extremely harsh sending off as Maitland-Niles was shown yellow cards for the only two fouls he committed in the game and neither were worthy of a booking.

The red card came with the scores still level at 0-0 and although Leicester had the better of the opening exchanges, there is no doubt Maitland-Niles’ sending off was a huge turning point in the game and who knows how it would have turned out had he stayed on the pitch.

Arsenal never recovered from going down to 10-men and we eventually lost 3-0 thanks to second half goals from Youri Tielemans and a double from Jamie Vardy.

The defeat has left Arsenal sitting fifth in the table but with Chelsea drawing 1-1 with Manchester United this afternoon, we still have a chance to clinch fourth place if the Blues drop points in one of their two remaining games and we manage to beat Brighton and Burnley.