Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said it was a “shame” that VAR was not clear enough to determine whether West Ham’s first goal in their 2-0 win over the Gunners should have stood.
Tomas Soucek tapped home from close range from Jarrod Bowen’s cross from the left byline on 13 minutes to give the Hammers the lead, but it was unclear as to whether the ball had gone out of play in the build-up.
A three-and-a-half-minute VAR check saw the technology look at the best angles possible before awarding the goal, with Arteta revealing the officials told him that the image was “not conclusive” – so the on-field decision stood.
“I haven’t seen it, they only thing they [the officials] said was the image was not conclusive,” said Arteta in his post-match press conference.
VAR seemingly couldn’t find an angle to show the ball was conclusively out of play
“It’s just a shame that the technology that we have is not that clear that we can say it’s out of play. It’s done, it’s gone and there’s nothing we can do about it now.”
“So what we have to do is without that, win the game, and with the situations we had today, we had more than enough.”
Arsenal had 30 shots on goal and 77 touches in West Ham’s box – the latter statistic being the most on record since 2008-09 in a single Premier League match for a team who failed to score.
In the end, former Arsenal defender Dinos Mavropanos doubled West Ham’s lead after half-time, with David Raya forced to save a Said Benrahma penalty in stoppage time to deny a Hammers third.
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FREE TO WATCH: Highlights from the Premier League clash between Arsenal and West Ham
However, the post-match talk surrounded the awarding of the first West Ham goal.
This is the second time Arsenal have been involved in a situation similar to this, with Newcastle’s winner against the Gunners in November controversially awarded after Joe Willock took the ball near the byline.
According to the written reasons given after Arteta avoided an FA charge for his post-match comments, Willock told the Arsenal players that he had taken it out of play.
Meanwhile, Bowen – the player directly involved in the incident – said it was difficult to tell whether it had gone out.
Jarrod Bowen cuts the ball back from the byline to set up West Ham’s opening goal at Arsenal
“I haven’t seen it. It’s difficult because the ball was in the air,” he told Amazon Prime Sport. “It was hard to tell. It would have been easier to tell if it had been on the ground.
“It was really important to get the first goal. We’ve won tonight. We need to take one game at a time. It sounds boring but we have to keep getting results.”
In or out? You decide
VAR angle of Jarrod Bowen’s pass to Soucek for West Ham’s opening goal