Arteta on the cancelled penalty: It's against the rules, completely unacceptable

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta was left furious after referee Danny Makeli's decision to overturn a penalty he had initially awarded for a foul by David Hantzko on Eberechi Eze . There was contact between the two, with the defender not playing the ball, but the referee was advised by VAR to review the situation and he ultimately overturned his original decision. It would have been Arsenal 's second penalty and their third of the match.

"After I got back to the dressing room, I spoke to the boys and watched the penalty incident. It's extremely disappointing and annoying because it was against the rules and it changed the course of the game. I'm very, very disappointed. There was no clear and obvious mistake. I mean the whole sequence of actions. You give a penalty and then you can't overturn the decision after reviewing the situation 13 times. It's the wrong decision," Arteta said.

The Spaniard also commented on the penalty in favor of Atletico Madrid, which was awarded again after the VAR intervention due to a handball by Ben White. However, before that, there was a ricochet in the defender's knee. In such situations, referees in the Premier League almost never award penalties, but this is not the case in the Champions League, which was also seen a day earlier, when an 11-meter penalty was awarded for a similar situation with Alphonso Davies.