Former Premier League referee Graham Scott believes Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has brought unnecessary attention to his touchline behaviour by publicly questioning his treatment by match officials.
Arteta recently suggested that referees were unfairly targeting him for stepping outside his technical area, having received another yellow card during Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Everton.
The Spaniard has also revealed that Arsenal are reviewing footage of other Premier League managers to assess whether technical-area regulations are being enforced consistently.
However, Scott, who officiated in the Premier League for a decade before retiring in 2025, has questioned the manager’s approach.
Writing in his weekly mailbag for The Athletic, Scott argued that Arteta had intensified scrutiny of his own conduct by making the issue public.
“I’d say Arteta is in the spotlight because Arteta has decided to make an issue of Arteta’s treatment,” he wrote.
Scott suggested that the Arsenal boss could have avoided further attention by keeping the club’s analysis of other managers private.
He also insisted that Arteta remains responsible for his behaviour during matches, regardless of how other coaches conduct themselves.
The former official explained that football’s regulations prohibit managers from leaving their technical areas, although referees generally allow some flexibility.
Instead, officials place greater emphasis on the requirement for coaching staff to behave responsibly, which Scott acknowledged can be interpreted differently.
He nevertheless dismissed suggestions that referees deliberately single out Arteta for punishment.
Scott also addressed whether Arsenal’s public complaints about officiating could influence decisions during matches.
He acknowledged that unconscious bias cannot be ruled out entirely but argued that such criticism could just as easily encourage officials to take a stricter approach.
The former referee compared Arsenal’s complaints with similar approaches previously adopted by Pep Guardiola, Jurgen Klopp and Arsene Wenger.
Drawing on his experience, Scott maintained that most referees were capable of ignoring public criticism and concentrating on events on the pitch.
He also cited Premier League assessments of significant refereeing decisions to challenge suggestions that Arsenal have consistently suffered from unfavourable officiating.
According to Scott, Arsenal benefited from nine subjective decisions and were disadvantaged by five last season.
Since the introduction of the league’s Key Match Incidents panel in 2022, he said the overall balance stood at 25-22 in Arsenal’s favour.
Scott argued that those figures did not indicate a meaningful pattern of bias against the Gunners.
His comments add another perspective to the debate surrounding Arteta’s touchline conduct and the consistency of Premier League officiating.