Arsenal will be without Declan Rice for September’s north London derby against Tottenham Hotspur after he received his first-ever red card against Brighton on Saturday.

The midfielder was shown a second yellow card in the second half for not retreating for a Brighton free-kick. Rice’s first yellow came from a late challenge on Joel Veltman in the first half.

The official Premier League Match Centre explained: “The referee issued a second yellow card to Declan Rice for delaying the restart.”

It means that the Gunners will be without their influential midfielder for the fixture away at Tottenham on September 15 after the international break.

And former Premier League referee Mike Dean has confirmed why Rice was sent off. He claims that players were told before the season that they would be booked for stopping restarts.

“Unfortunately for Declan, he’s kicked the ball away,” he said on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday. “He hasn’t kicked it far, but they’ve [players] been told before the season, ‘kick the ball away, delay any kind of restart and it’ll be a caution’. He’s already on a yellow card, it’s got no choice but to send him off unfortunately.”

He added: “He stopped the restart because Brighton wanted to put it down the pitch quickly. The defender’s been very, very clever because he knows what’s going to happen.”

Rice’s absence will come as a blow after Mikel Arteta confirmed ahead of the clash against Brighton that new signing Mikel Merino had picked up an injury. The Spaniard is suspected to have suffered a fracture.

“It’s very unfortunate,” Arteta said on Friday. “Yesterday he had a collision and got a shoulder injury.

“He’s going to be out for a few weeks. It’s really bad luck and we were all very excited. He was looking very good, he landed on the floor, Gabi went on top of him and it looks like he’s got a small fracture probably. He was in so much pain, so we have to wait and see with the staff to do some more tests to have more conclusive answers.”