when down to 10 men, you want your best defence on to stop the opposition scoring. You can cope with missing a midfielder when you've got 5 on the pitch, but if u lose a defender you have to make a substitution. You lose the opportunity to bring someone else on later in the game, and your defence gets worse as a unit.
I didn't think it was possible for us to play worse than we did at Anfield but here we are. Similar games, similar scorelines. And Chelsea have exploited the same space Liverpool did, between fullback and center-half. Madness.
Flamini should have been a no-brainer as I said at the start. But Arsene "we go zere and play our game" Wenger strikes again.