Mikel Arteta was left baffled by the decision to award Everton a penalty during Arsenal’s draw at Goodison Park.
The Gunners were held to a 1-1 draw by Everton after an Iliman Ndiaye penalty cancelled out Leandro Trossard’s opener.
Arteta was aggrieved by the awarding of the penalty, which was given after referee Darren England judged that Myles Lewis-Skelly brought down Jack Harrison.
VAR checked the incident and deemed there was sufficient contact inside the box, meaning England should stick with his on-field call.
But Arteta said: “The referee decides to give a penalty that changes the course of the game, which I’m here to give my opinion [on] and, after seeing it 15 times, there’s no way that, in my opinion, that’s a penalty.
“Because if there is, then [Jake] 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 it’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.
“I think we deserve more, but that’s what we got at the end. This is 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.”
