Arsenal centre-back Gabriel reacted with bewilderment after he was denied what appeared to be a penalty in yesterday’s frustrating draw against Newcastle.
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The Gunners missed the chance to open up a 10-point lead over Manchester City and pile more pressure on the champions ahead of their visit to Chelsea.
Though Newcastle were full value for the point they earned after another good defensive display, Mikel Arteta was left furious by two ‘scandalous’ refereeing decisions in the second half.
And while the Spanish coach had few supporting his opinion that Jacob Murphy should have been penalised for blocking Granit Xhaka’s cross with his arm in the 95th minute, there was some merit to his claim that Dan Burn was guilty of pulling Gabriel’s shirt earlier in the half.
Gabriel appeared to agree with his manager and question the referee Andy Madley for missing the infringement, as well as the VAR team at Stockley Park for not intervening, by posting a facepalm emoji on Twitter above a video.
Outlining his frustration after the game, Arteta said: ‘I’m extremely proud of my players. ‘The way we played, dominated the game, tried and continued to control the game. We needed that spark in the final third. We had so many situations. And we had two scandalous penalties.
‘There were two penalties. It’s very simple. I’m talking about what I’ve seen. It was two scandalous penalties. I’m so proud of the work we have done.
‘I think we lacked an extra touch or movement to finish these chances in this game. ‘Newcastle wanted to set-up like this. It is not the way they play. They have not set-up like this against anyone else.
‘When you cannot win you cannot lose, and we kept a clean sheet and had a really good performance. Now we go again.
‘I wanted to win the game are we drew it. We should have done some things better in the final third and we should have had two penalties to win the game.’
