Emiliano Martinez has responded to former teammate Alexandre Lacazette over a controversial flashpoint from Arsenal’s defeat to Aston Villa. The Gunners made it three games without a win and two defeats in three after losing 1-0 to Aston Villa following Ollie Watkins’ goal after just two minutes. Mikel Arteta’s men were banging on the door but ultimately came up short in front of goal, suffering another defeat on what has been a disappointing season so far. But things might have been different had Arsenal been given a second-half penalty when Lacazette and former Gunners keeper Martinez got into a tussle in the box in the 57th minute. Lacazette was incensed with the decision and took to Twitter to complain, replying to a video of the incident saying ‘another one’. But former teammate Martinez has responded, and clearly feels that referee Chris Kavanagh got the decision spot on after claiming it was six of one and half a dozen of the other.
And former referee Peter Walton also agreed with the decision saying: “First of all, VAR did look at it because they have a silent check on every incident and yes you can argue that the goalkeeper was fouled, you can argue that the goalkeeper was fouling Lacazette. The point is VAR is not there to get the correct decision, it is there to identify clear and obvious errors from the referee or if the referee has missed something. What I would say is from a subjective point of view, has Lacazette used that opportunity to then lean on the goalkeeper? We all agree that within football there is a certain amount of physical contact allowed. We get that and we don’t want VAR looking at items of that nature where it’s such a subjective viewpoint. VAR is not there to re-referee the game and they will only send the referee over to the monitor when they feel there’s a clear and obvious error being made or a missed incident as we’ve seen in the past. And don’t forget it’s still an evolving process and the guys who operate this are beginning to get more and more experience with it, so ultimately hopefully we will see consistency. At the moment there are still some areas of greyness.”
Martinez – who left Arsenal for Villa on a deal worth up to £20million in the summer – responded to Lacazette, saying “you were pushing me first bro’ with an emoji.
