‘No way that’s a penalty’ – Arteta unhappy with referee after Arsenal draw with Everton | OneFootball

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta was left feeling aggrieved after his side drew 1-1 with Everton as a result of a controversial penalty.

After Leandro Trossard had opened the scoring, Iliman Ndiaye equalised from the spot after Myles Lewis-Skelly was somewhat harshly adjudged to have brought down Jack Harrison.

And Arteta was left unhappy with the decision to award the spot-kick.

“I’ve seen it 15 times, there’s no way, in my opinion, that’s a penalty,” he said.

“Because if there is, then O’Brien has to be out and Everton has to play with 10 men, that’s clear. After that again, we dominated the game. We didn’t get too much momentum because he’s constantly breaking the play and a big part of that was down to us, because after direct play we get very cheap free-kicks away.

“We had two big chances to win the game, we didn’t convert them, so we have to accept the point.”

Arteta was also left feeling like his team deserved more: “I think we deserve more, but that’s what we got at the end.

“A really tough place to come. What they do, they do it really well. Constantly putting the balls into the last line, dealing with direct play and second actions.

“I think we haven’t conceded anything in the game, which was really positive. We were 1-0 up, had some big opportunities, ran into spaces, we didn’t finalise the actions.

“Second half we want them to start good, start to dominate the game, they’re going to be more aggressive, have more spaces. We did the opposite, we gave the ball straight to the keeper, direct play, trouble, again direct play and the referee decides to give a penalty. That changes the course of the game, which I’m here to give my opinion.”

Arteta opted to make changes to his line-up including not starting Martin Odegaard ahead of his side’s huge Champions League clash with Real Madrid on Tuesday.

And discussing his changes, Arteta said: “There were four players that couldn’t start the game after what happened with Fulham and obviously the injury of Gabi, so that forces you to make some changes as well because players deserve to play minutes.

“I’m very happy with that. Everybody has to be important, has to feel important. We have so many games coming up right now and we have to rely on all of them.”