Matteo Guendouzi was walking a tightrope from the moment he picked up a booking for a foul in the first half of our Carabao Cup win over Blackpool.
And sure enough, having bossed the game from midfield, Matteo was on the wrong end of a tight decision in the second half.
Did he deserve to be sent off? Here’s what Unai Emery thought of the decision:
on Guendouzi's suspension and missing Liverpool...
That is football. When you are playing, when you are on the pitch, you can have things positive or negative. Like an injury, a red card or 90 minutes of hard work. With the red card, it's like that. It's football. We have a lot of players looking to play and to take this responsibility to show their performance, their quality for the team and I am going to prepare with other players and thinking that we can also have a performance for a big match on Saturday.
on whether Guendouzi was naive...
He is playing well and he is playing with one very important thing: good spirit. He is competitive. The action is one action. He plays this action, normally, he is pushing behind the player and the second yellow card… I don't know if it is experience, but he is playing with the spirit like I want today and in every match. We spoke in the dressing room at half-time. I said it is very important to keep control, but I don't think that he really lost control in this action. He played how the action demanded and the red card is one circumstance in the game.
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