Yesterday’s result was a horrific end to a week that had started in a similar fashion for Arsenal. The Gunners should not have been reliant on VAR or luck to overcome what was proven to be a lacklustre Brighton team that had not won in seven matches.
However, this did not prevent the Arsenal fan base from criticising the offside decision which ruled out Gabriel Martinelli’s goal and, in fairness, they have a point. Gabriel Magalhaes’ header was converted by his compatriot, but no conclusive camera angle could prove if Martinelli was offside.
Marc Cucurella’s body position was obscured by Robert Sanchez and it was impossible to definitively say whether the Spaniard was playing Martinelli on. The broadcast showed two lines clearly putting the 20-year-old offside, but it was unclear why the line for the Brighton defender had been positioned in its location.
READ MORE: Alexandre Lacazette leads Arsenal revolt against refereeing as Granit Xhaka injustice is exposed
Arsenal fans took to Reddit to vent their frustration with a post of the offside lines captioned, “They literally just made up the decision.” The image does not show clearly how the assistant referee got the call wrong. The responses were one of pure frustration.
JFedererJ: They took – as near as makes no difference – 5 minutes looking at that. And, after FIVE MINUTES. 1 minute. 2 minutes. 3 minutes... FOUR MINUTES... FIVE MINUTES, they showed the lines for ONE SECOND from a camera hanging off the f*cking International Space Station. So after FIVE MINUTES of review, we don't even get to see where they drew the lines?! There was a sizeable gap between them, too. Pathetic.
M_Night_Shambles_on: Flipped a coin until it went against Arsenal
Askur_Yggdrasils: Heads goes against Arsenal, tails goes for Brighton.
Bolond44: They shouldn't have. The keeper's right foot and Cucurellas's right knee are in front of Martinelli. So it is not an offside, this is why they put down 2 BS lines and didn't even show us where the blue line was placed.
Tellusaboutit: That was hilarious. They showed the line for half a second and moved on
Jakerae: Yup. Are we surprised?
Navman22: There’s no way they could have been able to tell that with certainty, they’ve taken a guess which is well against the rules
Yungrawdy21: It’s arsenal. FA does it on purpose
slampand: If it is ManU it is a goal no doubt
Arsenal fans have a right to feel as though the world, or just in this case the officials, are against them. This is not the first-time strange decisions have been made or players have been treated in an odd inconsistent fashion.
Granit Xhaka was somehow booked for making three fouls according to Andrew Madley despite just making one. Nelson Semedo took out Gabriel Martinelli in the box at the Emirates in the opening minutes and it wasn’t given a second look.
Harry Maguire’s clear tug on Takehiro Tomiyasu at Old Trafford wasn’t checked. John McGinn’s unnecessary shove on Alexandre Lacazette. The list can go on and on.
However, no matter how many examples are brought forward, Arsenal always knew they would not be able to rely on decisions to win them games. The mistakes against Brighton were primarily of their own making.
The race for European football is still very much on. However, there needs to be a significant turnaround to have much hope of the revival for the Champions League places to be achievable.
