Wilfred Ndidi is lucky man and could have seen his day go completely awry in the Premier League match between Leicester City and Arsenal over the weekend.
Ndidi featured for 90+8′ of Leicester’s trip to the Emirates, but the afternoon was one the Nigerian would rather forget in hurry.
Despite Leicester fighting back to level at 2-2 against last season’s runners-up – the 27 year-old himself picking up an assist for the equalizer – Arsenal fans cried foul because he escaped a sending off.
This season, Premier League Referees have penalized players who kick the ball in attempts to delay play, after the whistle has gone.
Arsenal has twice been at the receiving end of the rule, following Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard’s sending offs against Brighton and Manchester City respectively – both were second bookings.
On Saturday, Wilfred Ndidi who was already on a yellow for his foul on Riccardo Calafiori – jogged over to the ball and kicked it past Bukayo Saka and off the pitch, after the Arsenal winger was fouled by Stephy Mavididi.
The Leicester City midfielder was shown a yellow card for a tackle on Riccardo Calafiori. (Photo by Mark Leech/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
His yellow card (31′) was issued only four minutes before that incident, and had Referee Samuel Barrott stayed on business, Ndidi would have gone for an early bath.
On Social media, Arsenal fans labelled the inconsistency as “hypocrisy”.
I really need to understand this touch the ball after the referee whistle rule because why is it ok for Ndidi to kick the ball here pic.twitter.com/cWg8aiKfrt
— Dawa (@dawalolaa) September 28, 2024
‘Ndidi kicking the ball away after fouling Saka. You see the hypocrisy looooool’, one fan posted on X, as per Robert Summerscales [Mail Sport].
Nonetheless, it was still a grim day for the Ndidi who scored an own goal to hand Arsenal back the lead in additional time, before Kai Havertz rounded up with a fourth goal for a 4-2 win.
