Arsenal suffered yet another home defeat, this time going down 0-1 to Everton on Friday night and there were two major talking points in the game – Bernd Leno & VAR.
It was Leno’s childish error that helped Everton score a 76th-minute winner but the Gunners should have taken a lead had VAR not ruled out a penalty decision in the second half.
Dani Ceballos had seemingly won a penalty after going down inside the box but the decision was eventually overturned as Nicolas Pepe was judged offside in the build-up to the tackle.
The usual VAR lines were drawn and it’s fair to say that the Arsenal winger was either on or off by maybe the length of a hair. And this borderline decision was more than enough to make Mikel Arteta lose his mind during his post-match press conference.
Arteta said after the match: “This is building up, enough is enough. Today, to be fair, I’d had enough.
“We’ve had many of them that no-one explains. When they explain, they say sorry, yes it was a mistake. But unfortunately it’s affecting our people, it affects our job and, most importantly, our football club.
Arsenal thought they had a penalty but it's been ruled out by VAR for THIS offside 👇
🙃 pic.twitter.com/KvCHBN5D2W
— Goal (@goal) April 23, 2021
“When they do [say sorry] it’s behind a telephone. I really like that we can make use of the technology, it’s just that we need consistency and clarity. We want to see their faces and responses. We’re always hearing from the media trying to explain why we do something, why we do the other thing. I think it has to be clear and explained.
“We lost the game for different reasons. One for things we can do better and should do better, one that we cannot control.”
This is not the first time VAR has been in the limelight for a poor or controversial decision and over the course of the season, these errors just seem to be piling up.
The penalty came at a time when Arsenal were clearly on the front foot and a goal at that stage should have been more than enough for the Gunners to secure all three points.
But, in the end, Arteta’s side have now suffered 13 losses in the league so far and they now risk moving down to the bottom half of the table if teams like Leeds United and Aston Villa can win their respective games in hand.
