Gunners beaten 1-0 at Villa Park after seeing calls for a penalty waved away and having a goal ruled out by VAR.
MIKEL Arteta admitted his side “lacked accuracy” after Arsenal suffered a frustrating 1-0 defeat at Aston Villa on Saturday evening.
John McGinn’s early goal was enough to settle matters at Villa Park as the Gunners were knocked off the Premier League summit.
McGinn found the back of the net after only six minutes, controlling Leon Bailey’s cross before hammering the ball into the net from close range.
The Gunners grew into the game, and were unlucky not to take at least a point with Villa defender Diego Carlos twice clearing efforts off the line to deny both Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Odegaard.
Arsenal looked like they had salvaged at least a point late on when Kai Havertz bundled the ball over the line, but the goal was ruled out for handball by referee Jarred Gillett, with the video assistant referee upholding the call after a lengthy review.
Arteta couldn’t hide his frustrations after the final whistle: “I’m very disappointed with the result, especially with the way we played – I think we deserved much more than what we had,” said the Gunners boss.
“I thought we were the better team. I haven’t seen a team do what we did to Villa today since we were here in February. It wasn’t enough to win it because we lacked the accuracy in the opponent’s box to put the ball in the back of the net with the amount of situations that we generated.
“We had so many big opportunities, some of them we didn’t even finish when they were completely open. We had to pick the right player to shoot and when we did it two or three times it was an open goal almost and we didn’t manage to score.
“But there’s not much more that we can demand from the team to play every three days. To play the way they’ve done, I am really pleased, but disappointed because in the end we didn’t have the result that we wanted.”
Arsenal saw calls for a penalty waved away minutes into the second half when Gabriel Jesus went down under Douglas Luiz’s challenge in the box.
Offering a cryptic response to both that decision and the Havertz goal that was chalked off, Arteta just repeated the words “clear and obvious”, adding, “I prefer not to comment”.
Aston Villa: Martinez, Konsa (Cash, 66), Carlos, Torres, Digne (Moreno, 78), Bailey (Diaby, 45), Kamara (Dendoncker, 67), Luiz, McGinn, Tielemans (Ramsey, 56), Watkins
Substitutes not used: Lenglet, Zaniolo, Duran, Marschall
Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko (Nelson, 90+3), Rice, Odegaard, Havertz, Saka, Jesus (Nketiah, 81), Martinelli (Trossard, 70)
Substitutes not used: Ramsdale, Kiwior, Soares, Jorginho, Elneny, Walters.
