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‘Not acceptable’ – Furious Mikel Arteta blasts VAR mistake that ‘cost Arsenal two points’ against Brentford.
Mikel Arteta has slammed Lee Mason’s “unacceptable” VAR failure to rule out Brentford’s equalizer against Arsenal on Saturday.
An obvious offside in the lead-up to Ivan Toney’s goal, which gave the Bees a 1-1 draw at Emirates Stadium and cost Arsenal two significant points in the title race, was unnoticed by Mason, who was assigned to the VAR for the Premier League match.
After the game, Howard Webb, the chief refereeing officer of PGMOL, called Arsenal to apologize and explain how the offside was missed. Mason was also benched for the upcoming round of games. And while accepting the apologies, Arteta was still incensed over what had transpired.
“We ended the game with a huge anger and disappointment because that wasn’t a human error,” the Arsenal boss said.
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“That was a big, big, big, not understanding your job and that is not acceptable. Everybody makes errors and mistakes and we are part of that, me the first one. But that was something else. I wasn’t having it, the club wasn’t having it and I think it’s clear, the consequences of what happened.
“That cost Arsenal two points and that’s not going to be restored. So we are going to have to find those two points somewhere else in the league.”
When asked if he was satisfied after his conversations with PGMOL that a similar error would not happen again, Arteta added: “I will only be satisfied if they give us the two points back which is not going to be the case.
“I appreciate and I think they were really sincere, open and genuine apologies and explanations, which is really good. But it doesn’t take the fact that we have two less points than we should have on the table.
In the Premier League on Wednesday night, the Gunners host Manchester City.