Arsenal were given a frankly comical foul during their 3-0 win over Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday afternoon.
Fans of The Gunners have complained all season that they’ve not been treated fairly by referees for the majority of the 2022-23 season.
However, in yesterday in London, Mikel Arteta’s side really did get the rub of the green from officials when it came to a “foul” on Fabio Vieira.
What happened during Arsenal v Fulham?
Arsenal beat Fulham 3-0 yesterday’s game thanks to goals from Gabriel, Gabriel Martinelli and Martin Ødegaard, extending their lead at the top of the Premier League back to five points.
What is most impressive for many Arsenal fans is that they’re still on course to win the Premier League, with just eleven games to go, despite some questionable refereeing decisions going against them.
Fans of The Gunners, their side should have been awarded several more penalties than they have this season, and looking at some of the calls during their game with Bournemouth this month, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
However, Arteta’s men were on the right side of a refereeing blunder yesterday, and footage of the incident is really rather comical.
Video: Fabio Vieira is awarded a foul for tripping over his own feet
As you can see from the footage above, Vieira was awarded a freekick in the final minute of yesterday’s game for simply tripping over his own two feet while running with the ball.
No one was really near Vieira, and it seemed quite clear that he’d simply fallen over, but referee David Coote disagreed and awarded Arsenal a late freekick.
The call had no real bearing on the game, but is still pretty comical, as you can see from the footage above.
Video: Mikel Arteta’s hilarious reaction to Fabio Vieira freekick call
What made the whole situation even funnier was Arteta’s fantastic reaction, which you can see in the embedded tweet above.
Arteta is quite a vocal manager on the sidelines, and can often be seen, and heard, arguing with referees during Arsenal games.
However, as you can see in the footage above, it seems like Arteta is either telling the referees that Vieira tripped over his own feet, or agreeing with the Fulham staff that that’s what happened.
Either way, Mikel still had a smile on his face during the whole ordeal, happy that Arsenal were on the right side of a questionable refereeing call for once…
