Sunderland fell to a 2-0 defeat against Arsenal on Saturday night

Mikel Arteta hit out at the decision to award Sunderland a penalty on Saturday night as 'not acceptable'.

Arsenal eventually ran out 2-0 winners at the Stadium of Light but a finely-poised game could have gone another way when Ezri Konsa was judged to committed a holding offence on Dan Ballard in the box. VAR confirmed the decision but David Raya made the save from Enzo Le Fee, with Bruno Guimaraes scoring a stunning goal moments later.

Arteta praised Sunderland and hailed a 'beautiful' game of football but fumed at the penalty award.

"Look, the first question that we have to discuss is this and this is not acceptable at this level, because it was a beautiful game of football," Arteta said.

"With two teams, with an atmosphere that unbelievable. With Sunderland, they are so well organised, they are so good in so many phases, they have great players, they create a lot of issues. We have had to cope with all of that. It was a lot in a really difficult week, after Chelsea and Napoli. And on top of that, we have to go through what we've done today. That, in my opinion, is not acceptable.

"And I watched it 20 times, and I cannot find a way to understand how they think to give a penalty in that situation, or the way the VAR has to intervene. So I don't know what to think, really. But I'm sad that we have to discuss, in such a beautiful game, something at this level, that has the gravity of that, because that changes the course of the season, and it can cost you the championship. And at this level, with all the work that we've put in, this cannot happen.

"I want to talk about the game, and how good we were, how good Sunderland was, and the level of the league and how beautiful this is. We should never be talking about this, or the save of David, which was incredible, we should not even be talking about that."

Arteta praised his players for their late defensive efforts at the end of a long week, but admitted they had rode thier luck at times against an impressive Sunderland outfit.

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"But there is an element of luck as well, because they are so good at doing that," he said.

"They throw up numbers, they know exactly how to do it, the timing is so good, the type of players that they do. But not only that, when you give them space to play as well, they play, they are a really, really good side. At any other moment, we could have conceded a goal in a different way, and that's part of the game as well.

"We still have something in the stomach [from last season's game], and the manner that it happened as well.

"And we knew that we were going to have to go through certain difficult moments and very chaotic moments inside the box to earn the right to win the game, and we've done it, we've done it. We suffered, but we've done it."

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