The Premier League Key Match Incidents Panel has found that Arsenal were wrongly denied a penalty during their clash against Aston Villa
Ian Maatsen tackles Bruno Guimaraes during Aston Villa vs Arsenal
The Premier League has ruled a 'clear and obvious' error denied Arsenal a penalty(Image: Offside via Getty Images)
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The Premier League Key Match Incidents (KMI) Panel has found that Arsenal should have had a penalty against Aston Villa. Five members of the KMI panel felt that Ian Maatsen's challenge on Bruno Guimaraes warranted a spot-kick late on in the Gunners' 1-0 win at Villa Park.
Introduced as an independent review of the critical incidents during the top-flight campaign, three former players or coaches, one representative from the Premier League, and one from ProRef dissect some of the talking points throughout the season.
Upon reviewing Arsenal 's narrow win over Villa at the end of August, Maatsen's challenge on Guimaraes has been described as "reckless", leading to a second booking for the Belgian as well as a clear and obvious error from the referee.
The panel unanimously voted that the decision went against the Gunners 0:5.
In a report from the Premier League, they said: "The panel felt that a penalty should have been awarded on-field for Maatsen’s reckless challenge on Guimaraes. Clear contact was made on the attacker’s standing leg and Maatsen made no contact with the ball.
"They (KMI) also felt that VAR should have intervened as the non-penalty awarded was a clear and obvious error. The panel felt that the challenge was reckless and therefore a second caution should have been awarded."
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Despite the no penalty call, Arsenal went on to claim victory thanks to Bukayo Saka's second-half strike.
The Premier League's admission comes amid accusations of leniency towards the north London club from across the top-flight.
Maatsen's wild swipe in the penalty area was checked and cleared but the ruling now sees Arsenal unfortunate not to rubber-stamp the points and finish with a man advantage after the former Chelsea wing-back was booked minutes earlier for a swipe on Saka.
Saka said at the time: “Very very tough game. It's not easy coming here, we knew that, and they made it hard for us so it feels great to come out with the win.
“One goal is normally enough for us because we're so solid at the back. Once we got the first, we could have got the second. We had two penalty shouts that didn't go our way.”
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