23 February 2024 , 12:00
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Mikel Arteta believes Premier League refereeing has improved since his VAR outburst after Arsenal's loss at Newcastle in November.
The Spaniard labelled the decision to allow Anthony Gordon’s goal to stand as “embarrassing” and a “disgrace” as he saw his side fall to a 1-0 defeat on Tyneside. The Gunners boss was duly charged by the FA for his comments - breaking Rule E3.1 - but was cleared after some fine work from his legal team in December.
Arsenal now host Eddie Howe’s Magpies in the return fixture at the Emirates on Saturday night, looking to keep pace with Liverpool and Manchester City at the top of the table.
And when asked if he had seen an improvement in officiating and VAR since his comments - which were subsequently backed up in a forthright statement from the club - Arteta was bullish.
He replied: “Well that is what we all wanted… that at the end the decisions are better and I think the last stats that came across show that there was a significant improvement and a lot of the decisions they were getting right, so hopefully that is the case and we continue to do that.
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“I talked the way I felt. I was very straight and I did it in a way that was pretty strong but within the law because I didn’t get charged for it and I think that tells the story.”
Arteta’s men come into the game on the back of a 1-0 Champions League loss in Porto in midweek where they failed to manage a single shot on target in a stop-start game against streetwise opponents. It was a kick in the teeth for the Gunners, having romped to wins at West Ham and Burnley in their last two league outings, scoring 11 goals in the process.
After Galeno’s 94th minute winner for Porto in midweek Declan Rice said that Arsenal need to improve their “savviness” - something his manager agrees with.
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“Yes, we certainly can develop a lot of things and those experiences are really relevant to judge whether we were or we weren’t,” he replied when asked if the team need to improve their darks arts. “I believed that they did a lot of things right. But managing games and things like that, we can still improve.
“But in a year’s time for sure we can still improve and we can improve in our build-up phase and we can improve in our restarts. We can improve in many areas.
“I don’t know if it is about (being) a bad guy but you have to be tricky, you have to be smart, you have to be streetwise and you have to try to take advantages in every situation. They know that.
“That’s a thing that has to be developed – you don’t have it, that’s for sure. The best teams, the best players, they have that.”
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