After losing a keenly contested Premier League game at Newcastle at the weekend, Mikel Arteta was incandescent with rage in his post-match press conference.
The Arsenal manager’s ire was directed squarely at the officials whom he clearly felt weren’t fit to do the job.
Newcastle’s winning goal took three separate VAR checks to be carried out before it was awarded, however, there was reasonable enough doubt with each point so as to make the award of the goal very controversial indeed.
Arteta didn’t hold back, suggesting that he felt sick by a decision that he called embarrassing and an absolute disgrace.
As of this moment he hasn’t been hauled over the coals for his outburst, suggesting that there’s some degree of sympathy for his plight.
During his pre-match press conference for the Champions League test against Sevilla the Spaniard was inevitably asked about the weekend’s events, and rather than leave it in the past, he has helped to rewrite the headlines again.
“Talk loudly” is what Arteta has said he will continued to do, per The Independent (subscription required).
It might not make him any friends at Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the organisation which supplies officials to the Premier League, and it piles the pressure on them too.
One has to admire his outspokenness on this subject too, given that it’s entirely possible the powers that be will come down hard and penalise him as a result.