Mikel Arteta publicly criticised two recent refereeing decisions he believes altered the course of Arsenal\u2019s title challenge. The manager addressed incidents in matches against Newcastle United and Manchester City that he said occurred at “crucial moments.” <\/p>\n
In the 74th minute at St James’ Park, Newcastle goalkeeper Nick Pope received only a caution after coming off his line to take down Viktor Gy\u00f6keres. The Premier League\u2019s Match Center noted the foul was not deemed a denial of a goalscoring opportunity “due to the close proximity of a Newcastle defender, who had the possibility to claim possession of the ball.” Arteta was unequivocal. “I have to say as well in my opinion, it is a clear red card. I have watched it 10 times. If you have ever played football, it is a red card.”<\/p>\n
That decision did not prevent Arsenal from taking three points, but it limited the visitors to a single goal and, Arteta warned, could prove decisive if the title race comes down to goal difference or goals scored.<\/p>\n
Arteta then questioned a match at the Etihad Stadium where he believes Manchester City defender Abdukodir Khusanov committed a last-man tackle on Kai Havertz in the 53rd minute. “It is the second time in two games because against Manchester City when Kai Havertz goes through and Khusanov\u2019s fouling him at 1\u20131, the title is there. It is a red card,” the 44-year-old said. Eight minutes later Erling Haaland scored the match-winner, a result that pulled City within three points with a game in hand. City then won at Turf Moor against relegation-bound Burnley midweek to go top. Arsenal have since reclaimed first place but have again played a game more.<\/p>\n
“So these are the margins as well,” Arteta continued. “Hopefully that is going to change. Everyone will have their opinion, I am here to give my opinion.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m somebody who has been in the game for the long time. You talk to any of the players because the trajectory, where the ball is, there is no keeper there. If that had happened the other way around, it is a red card.”<\/p>\n
He added: “I am saying the reality of the last two games at crucial moments when everything is at stake, we need everything to go our way and it hasn\u2019t.” He later qualified his remarks: “I am not giving any excuses. I am the first one to understand. I didn\u2019t talk about it when we lost the game. I am doing it when we won. It is a red card today. It is a red card in Manchester and the world is different. That\u2019s it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arteta blamed refereeing errors in matches vs Newcastle and Man City that he says could cost Arsenal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13084,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,969],"tags":[1505,1162,1553],"class_list":["post-13085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-bookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}