Keith Hackett has claimed that Arsenal’s third goal should not have been allowed, with manager Mikel Arteta having left his designated area to interfere with play.
The Gunners went onto win the fixture 3-2, with the Spanish coach having helped his side to move 3-1 up with his action on the sidelines before a late consolation goal for Watford cut the deficit to one.
The build-up to our third goal however came with the ball going out of play for the throw in, with the coach Arteta exiting his assigned area to retrieve the ball before urging his side to get the ball back in play quickly which resulted in the Gabriel Martinelli’s goal.
Hackett now insists that what Arteta did was outside of the law, and wouldn’t have been clamped down on in Europe as it should have been by the PL officials.
“If you look at that clip, the technical area is one metre each side of the bench,” Hackett told the Football Insider.
“You can see Arteta, when he throws the ball, there’s no question he is well outside his technical area. In law, that is an offence.
“He’s well outside his technical area. I pose the question, who is in charge of the referees at the elite end in England, is it the Premier League who have a former director Mike Foster as chairman of the PGMOL?Z
“This is slack refereeing. He’s left his technical area and got away with it.
“There is an issue with managing the managers in their technical area. This is the law. Are the referees going to apply the law?
“At the moment they are not so we see these types of situations. In Europe, when they referee European games they apply it rigidly. That tells you something.
“What he did was broke the laws of the game, no question. But he’s not alone.
“It’s both the referee and the fourth official. His team, on this occasion, have gained an unfair advantage.
“You’re often accused of being pedantic and people say it’s a little thing but have we got a law and are we going to apply it or not?
“I thought it was poor officiating.”
I’m not quite sure what the big deal is with the technical area. My understanding was that the two coaching teams would be kept separated after a number of fracases, but as far as interfering with the ball boys doing their job was a no-event.
Some rules are a little pointless in my opinion, but there could be a valid reason for the technical area that I’m not aware of.
Would there have been uproar if our throw on was pulled back? Could VAR have gone back as far as the Arteta action to rule out the goal?
Patrick
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