Mikel Arteta adamant Nick Pope should have seen red on Saturday

It wouldn't be an Arsenal v Newcastle United match without a controversial incident to dissect for days afterwards, would it?

Nick Pope returned to the starting lineup for Newcastle on Saturday after watching Aaron Ramsdale take his place for the last five Premier League games.

For the most part, Pope was solid. He made some good saves throughout the game, and there was nothing he could have done about Eberechi Eze's superb effort on 9 minutes that proved to be the only goal of the game.

However, this is Nick Pope we're talking about, so there was the obligatory heart-in-mouth moment to contend with. In the second half, Arsenal broke away on a counterattack, and with very little help in defence, Pope rushed out of his area to beat Viktor Gyokeres to the ball but somehow missed entirely and wiped out the striker in the process.

The referee got it right - unless you're Arteta

It was a clumsy foul for which Pope was booked, but naturally, the Arsenal fans were chanting for a red card that never came. VAR reviewed it and agreed with the referee's decision.

It looked like the right call as Gyokeres never had control of the ball, there was a covering defender as Malick Thiaw was close by, and replays showed that the contact came as a result of Pope not being able to stop his slide in time.

Mikel Arteta didn't see it that way, though, obviously. Complaining to BBC Match of the Day at full-time that he felt it should have been a red card.

“It’s a clear red card, I’ve watched it 10 times”.

“It’s the second time in two games, because against Manchester City when Kai Havertz goes through and Khusanov fouls him, 1-1, the title is there, it’s red card!”.

The tears of unfathomable sadness

There are few things in life we love more than disagreeing with a disgruntled Mikel Arteta, so it fills us with joy to see him so upset and so wrong at the same time.

We can't wait to see Dermot Gallagher's interpretation on Ref Watch on Monday. He's bound to have some brilliant insight. Although he does tend to side with the referees more often than not, so he's likely to be on our side with this one.

We'd be taking much more pleasure in Arteta's tears had we managed to prevent them from winning, but honestly, at this point in our season and our form of late, we'll take whatever joy we can.