Arsenal have appealed against David Luiz red card - Arteta

Arsenal have lodged an appeal against the red card shown to David Luiz in Tuesday's loss to Wolves, Mikel Arteta has confirmed.

The defender was shown a straight red card after making minimal contact with Willian José's heel on the stroke of half-time and VAR upheld the decision made by refereee Craig Pawson.

Ruben Neves converted the resulting penalty to cancel out Nicolas Pépé's opener and João Moutinho secured the three points for Wolves, as Arsenal finished with nine men after Bernd Leno was dismissed for inexplicably handling outside his area.

Arteta "very hopeful" over Luiz red card appeal

Arteta did not feel Luiz could be solely blamed for leaving his team-mates a player short and hoped to hear back on an appeal against the sending off on Thursday.

"I am very hopeful and that's why we put the appeal on, we went through the images and we think that the red card should be overruled, that's why we put in the appeal," Arteta said ahead of Saturday's meeting with Aston Villa.

"I don't know how long it will take but hopefully today we will have more information.

"We know the law. For me, it's more about the decision, and what happens in that instance. There was a very similar incident, even though David is behind him and against Manchester United he was on the side of the player, it completely changes the angle and how much it affects the players ability to finish the action, but still a similar situation. I think they will look at it.

"You look at the two images we can have a long, long debate here. Just to put the finger on David, in my opinion, is not fair."

"No team with five red cards is on top of the table" - Arteta

Arsenal have received a Premier League-high of five red cards this season but Arteta is not concerned by a potential lack of discipline in his squad.

The only dismissals that truly bothered him were the avoidable ones dished out to Pépé at Leeds United and Granit Xhaka against Burnley, where incidents away from the ball ended their outings early.  

"When I was worried about the discipline it was on two occasions, with Nico and with Granit. We should avoid that," said Arteta.

"There are other ones where in a split second you have to make a decision, the referee has to make a decision as well, and there is much less to control from our side.

"What is clear is when you have five red cards in this period you will lose a lot of points. If we had some of those points we would be in a completely different position on the table.

"No team with five red cards is on top of the table, it doesn't happen."