Arsenal vs Man City: It’s too easy to blame the poor refereeing

Arsenal suffered a 3-1 defeat at the hands of the leaders Manchester City, at the Eithad Stadium which takes them 12 points clear of the Gunners on the table.

Arsenal slumped to another unsurprising defeat, albeit to a team that is undefeated in all competitions and have scored 38 goals in 11 fixtures in the Premier League. But when expectation and confidence levels are low amongst fans, why is it that the loss still frustrates us?

The hosts took the lead in the 19th minute, after Kevin De Bruyne slotted it from the edge of the 18 yard box, but then a very soft and questionable penalty that Sergio Aguero scored in the 50th minute and an offside goal scored by Gabriel Jesus in the 74th minute after Alexandre Lacazette had pulled one back for the visitors in the 65th minute, killed off the game for the North Londoners.

Arsene Wenger was evidently furious after the game, questioning the quality of the referees this season during his post match interview by stating:

"” … I feel they don’t work hard enough, because the level drops every season at the moment. Overall, its unacceptable what happens.”"

Wenger even resorted to mentioning last seasons game at the home of the Citizens, claiming both the goals in the 2-1 loss were offside.

Whilst I can agree with the shocking standard of officiating in big games, what I have trouble wrapping my head around is why it supposedly always happens to us. Maybe we don’t get screwed over every game. Maybe we were just outplayed, outwitted and outfought every game.

Yes the penalty shout was soft and yes it was offside leading to the goal, but that’s such an easy excuse. Its an easy way out of the tough questions that follow after a loss.

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Today, in the paper’s nobody will question the managers decision to bench a £50 million striker, or play a defensive midfielder as apart of a three man center back. All the talk will be about what Wenger said about referees, which I think is cowardly.

I wouldn’t be so frustrated if he had come out, stated City were the better team (which they were), admit there’s a problem in the dressing room, and explain what can be done to fix the situation. Instead we’ll play the ‘it was the referee’s fault’ card and completely ignore our abysmal record against top six sides in the League, especially away from home.

Alexis Sanchez clearly doesn’t want to be at Arsenal, Mesut Ozil will more than likely follow Sanchez out the door and we’ll be mourning over two of the best players our club has ever seen in the Premier League era.

Maybe the reason why all these decisions are given against us is because we don’t dominate the game, we always play so nervously that the opposition takes advantage of our fragility. Had we shown more character and more solidarity, we could have really taken it to City and maybe then we would have had the benefit of the doubt for the decisions.

Next: 5 Things Learned Against Manchester City

It’s not like we would have even won the game. Take away the penalty and the offside goal, it would have been a 1-1 draw and the game could have gone either way in the final minutes. Lets not make excuses and lets accept the reality of our situation, which is that the club is in a crisis and are seriously underachieving.