Arsenal were left to wonder after Saturday\u2019s goalless draw with Nottingham Forest when officials ruled that Ola Aina\u2019s arm was in a natural position following a VAR check. The reprieve came despite television replays showing the ball brushed Aina\u2019s arm and amid protest from Mikel Arteta.<\/p>\n
The game lacked a breakthrough after Arsenal had squandered several early chances, most notably a skewed close-range effort from Gabriel Martinelli. The draw left Arteta\u2019s side seven points clear of Manchester City after a thumping derby win for Manchester United earlier in the day. It also gave Aston Villa the opportunity to reduce the gap to four points should they beat Everton on Sunday.<\/p>\n
On the field Michael Oliver had an obstructed view of the incident and halted play while in conversation with VAR Darren England. The Premier League Match Centre later clarified that \u201cthe ball was played off Aina\u2019s shoulder first, while his arm was also in a natural position.\u201d That assessment echoed the officials\u2019 decision that Aina\u2019s arm was natural.<\/p>\n
Arteta did not accept the verdict, insisting his side had \u201cobviously\u201d been denied \u201ca very clear penalty.\u201d Nottingham Forest manager Sean Dyche responded differently. He was more concerned with a penalty appeal his side had missed after Jurri\u00ebn Timber tangled with Callum Hudson-Odoi near the edge of the box. TNT Sports pundit and former Arsenal centre back Martin Keown dismissed the Forest complaints and pushed Dyche over the Aina handball, saying, \u201cYou\u2019ve seen those given.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dyche remained adamant. \u201cYou might as well cancel football if you\u2019re going to give that,\u201d the firmly spoken coach twice repeated. \u201cI\u2019m being serious,\u201d Dyche continued in the face of Keown\u2019s exasperation.<\/p>\n
The episode underlined continuing uncertainty over handball interpretations. The FA Handbook\u2019s Law 11 states a player \u201cis considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand\/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player\u2019s body movement for that specific situation.\u201d The match left both camps frustrated and the title race unchanged but tense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Referees ruled Aina\u2019s arm natural after VAR check; Arteta said his side were denied a clear penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,298,969],"tags":[1162,1376,779],"class_list":["post-6037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-nottingham-forest","category-premier-league","tag-analytics","tag-arsenal-update","tag-callum-hudson-odoi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037","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=6037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}