Arsenal captain Kolo Toure believes Sunderland defender Paul
McShane could have seriously injured Alexander Hleb during their
Premier League encounter.
McShane was shown a straight red card by referee Rob Styles in the
final minutes after catching the Belarus midfielder with a heavy
challenge and will now serve a three-match ban.
Hleb was stretchered off in his last Premier League match at West
Ham following Mark Noble's challenge which left him with a severely
bruised knee.
Fortunately Hleb showed no initial ill-effects from his latest
bruising encounter at Emirates Stadium which Arsenal won 3-2.
"When I saw that on the replay, I thought the intention was bad, he
did not get to Hleb. The referee did well to send him off," the
stand-in Arsenal captain said.
However, Toure did manage to have a quip with his team-mate
following the horror tackle.
"I spoke to Alex afterwards and I said 'they want to kill you' but
I was just joking! Alex is such a great player. He is okay, all
right," added Toure.
The victory was the tenth in a row for Arsene Wenger's side, who
are now on the club's best run of results since the unbeaten
campaign three years ago.
Toure was a member of that great side which vied for domination of
the English game but is wary of title-talk at this early stage of
the season.
"For the minute we don't talk about it. We just focus on what we
are doing well, enjoy it and make our fans happy.
"At the end we will see how far we go, the season is really long.
It is really important for the team to keep on winning because the
confidence is going higher and higher," the 26-year-old said.
