Arsenal has a discipline issue and it could cost the team the Premier League title

Mikel Arteta felt he had no choice.

The Arsenal manager saw his right back Ben White receive a yellow card in the first half of the Champions League game against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday, and quickly came to a decision.

White needed to be removed at halftime.

“We have played enough with 10 men in the recent period,” Arteta said with a smirk.

It is becoming abundantly clear: Arsenal has a discipline problem — and it might yet cost Arteta’s team a shot at the English Premier League title.

Arsenal has had three players sent off in the opening eight rounds of a league campaign that is seeing yellow cards being dished out at an unprecedented rate.

It continues something of a running theme under Arteta. Since he arrived as its manager in late 2019, Arsenal has collected 18 red cards in the Premier League — five more than the next team.

Tellingly for Arteta, the only games where Arsenal dropped points this season — the 1-1 home draw with Brighton, the 2-2 away draw at Manchester City and the 2-0 loss at Bournemouth on Saturday — came when the team had a player dismissed.

“We cannot continue to play with 10 men, especially at this level. You see how we struggled,” Arteta said this week. “We need to eradicate it, it’s clear. Why, the reason, how — it doesn’t matter. We have to focus that it has to happen.”

It particularly has to be happen on Sunday, when Liverpool visits Emirates Stadium in the headline match of the league’s ninth round.

Liverpool is in first place, one point ahead of second-placed City and four clear of third-placed Arsenal. A win would put Liverpool seven points clear of Arsenal already — hardly an insurmountable deficit at this stage but one which would leave Arteta’s players with little wiggle room. Perhaps more importantly, it would likely leave Arsenal six points behind defending champion City, which is expected to swat aside winless Southampton on Saturday.

Arsenal’s disciplinary issues come at the start of a season that has seen an average of 5.1 yellow cards awarded per game so far, according to league statistics supplier Opta.

That is far more than any previous Premier League, says Opta, which points out that last season’s 4.2 yellows per game was a new record — surpassing 3.7 per game in the 1998-99 season.

Two of Arsenal’s dismissals — Declan Rice against Brighton and Leandro Trossard against City — saw the players in question each collect two yellow cards, the second for time-wasting by kicking the ball away.

William Saliba was handed a straight red against Bournemouth for bringing down Evanilson near the halfway line and denying what was adjudged to be a goal-scoring opportunity.

Saliba, perhaps Arteta’s most important defender, will miss the Liverpool match as a result, at a time when Arsenal is already without captain Martin Odegaard (ankle) and might also be missing star winger Bukayo Saka (hamstring) and summer signing Riccardo Calafiori, who came off against Shakhtar with a twisted knee.

Liverpool will arrive on the back of 11 wins from its first 12 games in all competitions under new manager Arne Slot. That run contains six straight away victories, which is a club record for the start of a single campaign.

“Arteta has done an amazing job in the last few years,” Slot said after Liverpool’s 1-0 win at Leipzig on Wednesday, “and we have to be on top of our game to get a result.”

Steve Douglas is at https://twitter.com/sdouglas80

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Liverpool's Darwin Nunez, left, celebrates with Liverpool's Mohamed Salah after scoring the opening goal during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between RB Leipzig and Liverpool at the RB Arena in Leipzig, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024.(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Liverpool's manager Arne Slot looks out from the bench prior the Champions League opening phase soccer match between RB Leipzig and Liverpool at the RB Arena in Leipzig, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024.(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)

Arsenal's William Saliba in action during the English Premier League soccer match between Bournemouth and Arsenal at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth, England, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta gives instructions from the side line as Arsenal's William Saliba, centre right, leaves the pitch after receiving the red card during the English Premier League soccer match between Bournemouth and Arsenal at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth, England, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta reacts during the Champions League opening phase soccer match between Arsenal and Shakhtar Donetsk, at the Emirates Stadium in London, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Ian Walton)

Arsenal's manager Mikel Arteta waits for the start of the English Premier League soccer match between Bournemouth and Arsenal at the Vitality Stadium in Bournemouth, England, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey struck suspected Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Iraq for a second day on Thursday following an attack on the premises of a key defense company which killed at least five people, the state-run news agency reported.

The National Intelligence Organization targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, or by Syrian Kurdish militia that are affiliated with the militants, the Anadolu Agency reported. The targets included military, intelligence, energy and infrastructure facilities and ammunition depots, the report said. A security official said armed drones were used in Thursday’s strikes.

On Wednesday, Turkey's air force carried out airstrikes against similar targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, hours after government officials blamed the deadly attack at the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS, on the PKK.

Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Thursday that 47 alleged PKK targets were destroyed in Wednesday’s airstrikes — 29 in Iraq and 18 in Syria.

“Our noble nation should rest assured that we will continue with increasing determination our struggle to eliminate the evil forces that threaten the security and peace of our country and people, until the last terrorist disappears from this geography,” Guler said.

The assailants — a man and a woman — arrived at the TUSAS premises in the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi they commandeered after killing its driver, reports said. Armed with assault riffles, they set off explosives and opened fire, killing four people at TUSAS, including a security personnel and a mechanical engineer.

Security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack started at around 3:30 pm, the interior minister said. The two assailants were also killed and more than 20 people were injured in the attack.

There was no immediate statement from the PKK on the attack or the Turkish airstrikes.

In Syria, the main U.S.-backed force said Turkish strikes in the north of the country killed 12 civilians and wounded 25.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish warplanes and drones struck bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and local police checkpoints.

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems have been credited as key to Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.

The attack occurred a day after the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that’s allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the possibility that the PKK’s imprisoned leader could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.

Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured in 1999, is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul.

In a related development, his nephew Omer Ocalan announced on the social platform X that on Wednesday family members were allowed to visit him for the first time since March 2020.

Omer Ocalan, a lawmaker from Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, also conveyed a message from Abdullah Ocalan, saying he was being kept in isolation and offering to work to end the conflict “if the conditions are right.”

"I have the theoretical and practical power to (transform) this process from one grounded in conflict and violence to one that is grounded on law and politics,” Omer Ocalan quoted his uncle as saying.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut.

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside the Turkish state-run aerospace and defense company Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

Ambulances wait in line outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

People gather outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

People gather outside of the Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

In this image take from security camera video shows two people with guns and backpacks during an attack on the premises of the Turkish state-run aerospace and defence company (TUSAS ), on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday Oct. 23, 2024. (Validated UGC via AP)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)