The Spaniard claimed his comments were lost in translation (Pictures: Stick to Football / Getty)
Jamie Carragher has criticised the decision not to reprimand Mikel Arteta for his post-match rant at refereeing standards and says the Arsenal manager’s excuse was ‘absolute nonsense’.
The Spaniard was fuming last month when Anthony Gordon’s goal was allowed to stand in a 1-0 defeat away at Newcastle United, describing it as ‘embarrassing’ and a ‘disgrace’ in a lengthy rant across multiple post-match interviews.
He was charged for his outburst by the FA but escaped any sanctions, with one of his arguments being that the word ‘disgrace’ has different connotations in Spain, with ‘desgracia’ meaning misfortune, tragedy or bad luck.
But Carragher isn’t buying the excuse and believes Arteta should have been punished over his comments.
Speaking on Sky Bet’s Stick To Football show about the increase in managers being booked, he said: ‘I think it’s bubbling, and maybe it does need stamping down on, and maybe a couple of managers – Jurgen Klopp being one – might be the ones who get the full force of that, maybe Arteta.
‘The thing that fascinates me with Arteta is, what I see on the touchline it’s almost like a completely different person to the person I played against.
‘He wasn’t really that emotional. We played derby games, he was one of Everton’s best players, he was a silky player, but you’d never think he was at a referee or he was into his own players.
Arteta has already served one touchline ban against Aston Villa (Picture: Getty)
‘So I think some of the bookings he’s got – the over celebrating, the odd thing – there’s just no need for that [to be a booking], but I do think he shouldn’t have got away with [what he said after losing at Newcastle].
‘Once he got charged for what he said after Newcastle, and the defence was that there was a translation difference between what you say in Spain about saying something is a disgrace, that it means something different in Spain, that was nonsense wasn’t it. Come on. Absolute nonsense.’
Arteta was booked for a fourth time at the weekend in Arsenal’s comfortable win over Brighton, with Carragher continuing: ‘He was obviously shouting onto the referee and the fourth official has just said he had overstepped the mark.
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‘But there’s no doubt they’re looking for Arteta because he is lively on the touchline.
‘I think sometimes he’s that close to the pitch, if I was playing I’d be like [what’s going on?] – he’s almost like trying to close you down!’
Fellow pundit Ian Wright defended Arteta, saying: ‘‘You look at Arsenal, in respect of how the players are playing and performing with their so-called over passionate and over emotional manager, we’re number one in the fair play league!
‘It’s not like it’s transmitting onto the pitch and our players are out of order, like we just saw at Villa [in their fiery clash with Brentford].’
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The Arsenal boss claimed his comments were lost in translation.