Great news. Good and sensible move from the FA, for once. He'll be available for our game against Sp*rs, Leicester and Manure.
I am actually shocked. As an Arsenal fan, I'm delighted but I thought he got caught red handed? If it got rescinded due to Mike Dean not seeing the initial provocation, shouldn't Costa's ban be increased? But as usual, there's no transparency or consistency with the FA.
I'm pretty sure it was one of the other officials and not the ref who saw it, which may explain how there was wiggle room to rescind it. Not sure on what grounds we had it overturned, maybe that it wasn't enough to be violent misconduct? No idea. He is still facing a charge for not leaving the field when sent off, but I assume he can only be fined for that? It'll be interesting to see how many games Costa is banned for. Whether it will be three games or whether they will give him more.
Yeah, that's what I thought when I edited my post. And spot on, I said in the other thread his ban should be increased. 3 matches only makes 0 sense. He'll only get a fine.
It's too late for our important game against Chelsea which they won with their cheating ways, but good news that some sense has prevailed. We will have to see what happens to costa now...
Maybe they realised he was dealing with a violent criminal on the pitch, and so they let his behaviour slide. Hope Costa gets his legs broken one day.
As i mentioned on the game thread, it's now looking to be a total injustice that we ended up playing with 10 men pre half time when the score was 0 - 0 and if the review board ban Costa it'll look like we really got ****ed over on the result. I seriously believe Chelsea as a team should be deducted points and perhaps the fair thing would be to give both teams a score draw result. Obviously it can't happen, but it basically proves that we got shate upon by Mike Dean and Costa!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-beat-gabriels-red-card-6494420 So apparently we proved Gabriel didn't actually make any contact with Costa and put forward a case that he was the instigator of the aggression in the game. Or something along those lines.
You have to wonder how it would have affected the game of Costa had been sent off instead of Gabriel (as the FA seem to be admitting should have happened)
It's frustrating that it's happened this way, would of been a different game if Chelsea were down to ten instead of us. But at least it's a silver lining that Chelsea will be without Costa and we get Gabriel back.
Yeah but we know Mourinho will go in to a siege mentality strop now (everyone's against us 'little horses' bullshit) and play even more nineteenth century football, looking to nick a goal through Hazard with 10 men behind the ball, for the next 3 games...
And Mike Dean will still be officiating a premier league match this weekend. Are referees ever going to be held accountable for their incompetence and lack of professionalism like everyone else?
What annoys me about the result more than anything is that you just know that it will kickstart their season. If justice prevailed, Costa would have been sent off and it would have been 11 man Arsenal v 10 man Chelsea - which, objectively, we would have been favourites for and would have added another severe blow to Mourinho's tenure at Chelsea. Sometimes in life, it just isn't meant to be.
Onto Gabriel's ban being withdrawn, I'm actually stunned that it got rescinded. No clue at all as to how we got away with that, but at least common sense prevailed with Costa.
TBH i'm not sure they will push on, they didn't even look good against us. It's pretty similar to United 2 seasons back when they're decline began, they still managed to beat us 1-0 at Old Trafford giving David Moyes a very much needed big win, and many expected that to be the turn around and that they'd finally kick on, yet it never happened. i expect much the same to happen with Chelski, I just can't see a major resurgence with their current team-squad.
They were unable to provide clear footage of any contact made apparently and I think I'm right in saying it was the lino who supposedly saw something rather than the ref.
There was footage of Gabriel taking a (pathetic) swing at Costa which by definition is a red card offence for violent conduct. Not sure what happened after with Costa as, like you say, the footage isn't clear but suffice to say Gabriel is a lucky boy.
