Arsenal striker Gabriel Jesus has revealed that the referee explained why he wasn't awarded a penalty for a challenge made on him during a 1-1 draw away at Southampton. The Brazilian struggled during the clash, with his recent outing now making it five games without a goal.
It's been midfield talisman Granit Xhaka that has been in the habit of scoring goals as of late, bagging yet another with a volley into the roof of the net in the first half at Saint Mary's. With just the one goal lead, the Gunners were always in danger of coming under pressure, which is exactly what happened in the second half as the hosts hit back through Stuart Armstrong without reply.
"No complaints," Mikel Arteta said in review of the clash. "This is football. We were really good in the first half and totally controlled the game. We created loads of big chances that we didn’t put away. In the Premier League, unfortunately, if you don’t do that when you are top of the game, you can have some difficulties. In the second half, we put ourselves in problems with the amount of giveaways that we had, especially with ball possession, and that didn’t allow us to control the game the way we wanted."
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Arsenal would have felt hard done by when it came to refereeing decisions though, especially in one particular challenge that saw Jesus held by Duje Caleta-Car. The forward managed to get his shot off on goal, but there were still complaints that he was unfairly impeded.
The foul was also akin to that of Scott McTominay, who gave away a penalty to Chelsea in Manchester United's clash on Saturday for a similar offence. Jesus revealed he spoke to the officials after the game, saying to the official Arsenal website: "I spoke with him straight after and he said 'if you go down before maybe I can give a penalty'.
“But I think I was fair, I tried to hold and keep standing and tried to finish the action but in the end he grabbed me and it was impossible, so I go down normally. But that is not the reason why we don’t win the game and we had a lot of chances.”
While there will be frustrations over the officiating decisions, the attention will turn to how much more the side can do to win their upcoming fixtures before the break for the World Cup.
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