Angry Arsenal: Martinelli’s penalty chance was blocked by the referee, Odegaard’s penalty foul went unnoticed

The first Premier League game of 2021 certainly did not disappoint the unbiased football fan, the only negative was the performance of the head referee. Stuart Attwel made several mistakes in the Arsenal-Manchester City game to the detriment of the home side. What was it?

A foul on Odegaard

In the tenth minute, Martin Odegaard came into the visitors’ penalty area with the ball. A great chance had to be extinguished by goalkeeper Ederson and although at first glance it seemed that it was not a foul, the replay confirmed the opposite.

The head referee did not look at the situation again and stuck to the corner kick. BT Sport analyst confirmed that it was a penalty, even Manchester City fans were of the same opinion.

Arsenal supporters are annoyed by the attitude of Stuart Attwell, who went to look at Granit Xhaka’s tackle in the second half and then blew the whistle for a penalty kick.

Defending a penalty

To make matters worse, a few minutes after the penalty was whistled, Gabriel Martinelli had an open goal but missed it from a volley. Attwel was there again.

The head referee ran incomprehensibly to the penalty area and crossed the Gunners’ Brazilian winger. Maybe that’s why Martinelli didn’t hit the space between the three posts at all. And the ensuing kick-off was a foul on Gabriel Magalhaes and a red card.

The unsung hero of the match

Manchester’s win was decided by Rodri’s goal in the second minute of stoppage time. However, the Spanish midfielder didn’t need to be on the pitch at all by then, Attwel let him off with two harsh yellow-card level tackles, Rodri’s nasty second-half foul on Martinelli wasn’t even ruled an infringement by the head referee.

Source: Premier Sport