Arsenal’s appeal against Max Dowman’s red card at Fleetwood was dismissed on Thursday, to little surprise.

The club argued it was both a wrongful dismissal and an excessive punishment, but that was rejected by the FA, and the 16-year-old will now miss Sunday’s trip to Liverpool, the home game against Hull and the visit to Newcastle.

Let’s be clear: Dowman shouldn’t have reacted. Winning the appeal was always going to be a tough ask, and Mikel Arteta’s stern word as he walked off suggests he knew it too. But there is a wider issue in the game here.

Max Dowman punished for reaction while the challenge goes unpunished

We’ve all seen it by now, multiple times, I’m sure. With around five minutes left at Fleetwood, Dowman was facing away from play near the halfway line when Harrison Neal flew in on his standing leg. He didn’t see it coming. There was nothing on, no goal to prevent, no last-ditch tackle to make.

Dowman reacted, freeing his leg and kicking out at Neal. Whether you believe that reaction was a red card or not is sort of beside the point. He was sent off for ‘violent conduct’ yet Neal’s objectively dangerous challenge goes unpunished.

So if a tackle isn’t even given as a foul, it’s effectively allowed, and it can happen as many times as a player likes, endangering as many opponents as they like. Yet Dowman’s little reaction to it gets a three-match ban. That’s not right.

Football has to protect players like Max Dowman

This isn’t a one-off. Dowman has been kicked for as long as he’s been playing, because he’s the best young player in the country and kicking him is the easiest way to stop him. At the back end of last year, he was out for three months after a similar challenge in a friendly against Manchester United. Every time he plays, he’s going to be the most fouled player on the pitch, naturally.

Arsenal fans have seen where that can lead as much as anyone. Abou Diaby’s career was never the same after one bad tackle. Same with Eduardo. Aaron Ramsey took a while to get going again but had recurring injuries off the back of that horrific leg injury against Stoke.

What’s frustrating is the culture around it. A cheap shot on a 16-year-old gets laughed off as “welcome to proper football” and “this is the EFL, mate!” while his reaction gets treated as a scandal. You can’t have it both ways! The game is either soft or it isn’t.

It’s not just about protecting Dowman either. Young players need to go down the leagues to develop, and as Ian Wright pointed out after Marli Salmon’s night at Fleetwood, Premier League 2 isn’t real football. But clubs won’t send their best prospects out if the reward is being kicked out of the game.

Hopefully Dowman learns from this and doesn’t get drawn in again. The bigger lesson, though, is for the people running the game: punish the tackle, not just the reaction.