Mikel Arteta has said he couldn’t rewatch Anthony Gordon’s controversial goal from Arsenal’s defeat to Newcastle last season but believes there is no lasting damage from his subsequent row with PGMOL.
Arsenal return to St James’ Park on Saturday almost exactly a year on from losing 1-0 as Gordon’s 64th-minute strike sparked a furious response from Arteta, who branded the incident “embarrassing” and a disgrace” as the goal survived three separate VAR checks.
Arteta was subsequently charged by the Football Association for improper conduct but later cleared by an independent panel.
Asked if there were any ongoing consequences from the whole episode, Arteta said: “No hopefully we are past it. We talked through it in depth and that’s done. It is a year. A year in football is a long, long time.
“Every club has got its history and they have games and situations and comments. That is part of the game and we have to understand it as it is.
“Every decision I make I am going to be criticised, or nobody is going to understand or they will understand and praise it. There are always going to be opinions about our jobs, that’s normal.”
Pushed on whether he had watched Gordon’s goal back in preparing for Saturday’s game, Arteta replied: “I didn’t stop on that sequence! I didn’t want to go through that. It is already on my hard drive so I didn’t want to go through that again.”
Arteta confirmed Martin Ødegaard is still out with an ankle injury, Ben White is a doubt with a “joint” complaint but Gabriel Magalhães is expected to recover from a knee problem.
“We have a training session today,” Arteta added. “If he [Gabriel] is able to complete that he will be available. He hasn’t had any training sessions yet but if he can do that today he will be available in the squad.”
