‘No way’ – Arteta hits out at penalty decision during Everton vs Arsenal, drops Saka injury update

Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta thinks his side were unfortunate to concede a penalty in Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Everton at Goodison Park.

The Gunners dropped points against Everton in their eleventh Premier League draw of the 2024/25 campaign, so Liverpool will extend their lead at the summit if they beat Fulham on Sunday.

Arteta opted to rest a few of his key players ahead of next week’s Champions League quarter-final first leg against Real Madrid as Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli, Martin Odegaard and Thomas Partey started on the bench.

Despite this, Arsenal took the lead before half-time as Leandro Trossard drilled the ball into the bottom corner following a mistake from Idrissa Gueye.

Everton levelled the match as Iliman Ndiaye converted from the penalty spot after Myles Lewis-Skelly was adjudged to have fouled Jack Harrison.

Arteta reckons this incident “changed the course of the game” and “there’s no way” it was a penalty.

“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,” Arteta said.

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“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.

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

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Saka came on at half-time and played over 45 minutes, but Arteta remained coy when asked if he is ready to start against Real Madrid.

“Well, he’s in a much better place,” Arteta said.

“Obviously, we have built that up. He played 30 minutes, today he’s played 49, a little bit less because we whistled before we ended the game.

“And after that, he will be in a much better place. You’ve obviously got that big decision about who plays that left centre-back without Gabriel.”

On Mikel Merino, he continued: “He’s fine, I just checked with the doctor.

“He had a cut, so he was bleeding quite a lot in the first half, then he started again, so overall he wasn’t feeling anything.”