Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta criticizes ‘two scandalous’ refereeing decisions against Newcastle

Arse­nal man­ag­er Mikel Arte­ta has crit­i­cized ref­er­ee Andy Madley for “two scan­dalous ref­er­ee­ing decisions”.

Ref­er­ee Andy Madley twice dis­missed the home side’s fero­cious claims in a 0–0 draw at the Emirates.

The first was Dan Byrne pulling Gabriel Mag­a­l­haes’ shirt dur­ing a free-kick an hour ago.

And Arse­nal demand­ed a penal­ty again in stop­page time just before the end of the game.

Gran­i­to Xhaka’s cross hit Jacob Mur­phy’s arm from close range and Madrid once again ignored a demand­ing penalty.

“We got two out­ra­geous penal­ties,” Arte­ta told Sky Sports after the game.

When asked which of the two claims was stronger, he said, “It’s not about which is stronger, there are two penal­ties.” It’s that simple.

Arte­ta was asked if he had spo­ken to the ref­er­ee about the incident.

I’m talk­ing about what I’ve just seen, two out­ra­geous penalties.”

Arte­ta and New­cas­tle boss Eddie Howe got into an alter­ca­tion on the touch­line when the Gun­ners called for a penal­ty in the sec­ond half.

How­ev­er, the New­cas­tle boss, giv­ing his opin­ion on the inci­dent, insist­ed there was noth­ing wrong between the two.

“I did­n’t think it was a penal­ty and it would have been a farce at the time,” Howe said.

“Miquel and I are fine”.

The Gun­ners missed a chance to close the lead to 10 points after a hard draw.

They are now eight points behind Man­ches­ter City, one game behind Arte­ta’s side.

New­cas­tle, on the oth­er hand, have played one more game and sit third, nine points behind the Gunners.