Chelsea’s José Mourinho says FA has set precedent with Gabriel’s ban

José Mourinho believes the Football Association has set a dangerous precedent by rescinding Gabriel Paulista’s suspension for kicking out at Diego Costa, but Arsène Wenger says lifting the defender’s ban is too little too late after Arsenal’s defeat at Stamford Bridge.

The Arsenal player originally received a three-match ban for his actions in the 2-0 defeat at Stamford Bridge – which occurred just before half-time with the game poised at 0-0 – but the FA disciplinary panel changed its mind after reviewing evidence of the Chelsea player’s provocation that the referee missed in Saturday’s game. “I don’t really want to speak about the subject but we learned something this week,” the Chelsea manager said after his side’s 4-1 victory at Walsall in the Capital One Cup third round. “Now we know that retaliation is officially allowed.”

Asked whether the Gabriel incident was similar to the one which saw Nemanja Matic dismissed for kicking out at Burnley’s Ashley Barnes last season, Mourinho said he thought not. “The two situations were not the same,” he said. “You cannot compare a leg almost broken with a man-to-man discussion.”

Predictably Mourinho did not want to speak about Costa picking up the three-match suspension for his behaviour during the game, though visibly he was annoyed about it. “I don’t comment, if I reveal my true feelings a big suspension will be waiting for me,” he said. “The team has already lost a big player, they don’t need to lose their manager as well. I’m happy to remain calm and quiet.”

The Arsenal manager, while happy that the Brazilian’s ban was overturned, believes it does not go far enough to make up for a game that his team lost after going down to 10 men. “It just shows that they decided after the game what should have happened during the game,” he said. “They repair 5% of the damage that has been done to us. Instead of us playing 11 against 10, we played 10 against 11. [The ban being rescinded] doesn’t help us too much.

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