Arsenal goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale has told talkSPORT his side were left frustrated by ‘inconsistent’ refereeing in their 2-1 loss to Manchester City.
The Gunners had lost their previous nine league meetings against City, but took the game to the reigning champions in a dominant first-half that saw Bukayo Saka open the scoring.
Ramsdale was over the moon as he helped City to a half time leadGetty 
But him and his teammate’s were left gutted by ‘inconsistent’ refereeing at full timeGetty
The Gunners entered the break 1-0 up, but it could easily have been more when City goalkeeper Ederson took down Martin Odegaard in the box.
Granit Xhaka repeated the error at the start of the second half by fouling Bernardo Silva in the Arsenal penalty area but, unlike Ederson’s challenge, Stuart Attwell checked his pitchside monitor after initially dismissing the tackle.
Attwell then changed his decision, giving City a penalty and the equaliser from the spot from Riyad Mahrez, whose team later went on to take the three points.
Ramsdale discussed his disappointment with talkSPORT post-match, saying he couldn’t understand why one event was checked and the other wasn’t.
Ederson appeared to just miss out on getting the ballGetty 
And Arsenal’s players were left spending much of the game arguing with AttwellGetty
“That’s the word, inconsistency,” Ramsdale said. “He gets told to go and see the screen for one and not the other.
“He could have quite easily gone to the screen for Martin’s and said ‘no penalty’ but both times him and the linesman have said ‘no penalty’.
“The linesman on our one which they got given, he said he didn’t think it was a foul but got told to go and see the screen.
“If they go and see the screen and decide one is and one isn’t, that’s fair enough, he’s gone and seen it, but it’s the fact that he’s been told to go and see one and not ours that’s the important feeling.
“We’re feeling deflated because of the inconsistency.”
City’s penalty came when Xhaka took down SilvaAFP
Following City’s equalising penalty, Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes saw two yellow cards in two minutes to reduce his side to ten men.
The first came for scuffing the penalty spot with his boot before Mahrez’s penalty, and the second was for a body-check on fellow Brazilian Gabriel Jesus shortly after.
Ramsdale was asked by talkSPORT if his defender would approach the situation differently in the future, and agreed.
“I think so, yeah,” he said. “The thing is Jesus has pulled a nice bit of skill out, normally strikers would usually chest that back towards their own goal but he’s chested it on the half turn and Gabi’s just ran into him.
Ramsdale admitted Gabriel could have timed his tackle betterGetty
“I had to go and ask the question was that a straight red because I didn’t know he got booked.
“It’s frustrating, but even after that we were defending really well and [the winning goal] was a lucky ricochet for them.”
Despite the disappointment, Ramsdale was full of praise for his side, who put in one of their best displays of the season against a title-challenging side.
He explained: “We’ve got it wrong against big teams a couple of times at the start of the season and it shows how far we’ve come as a team.
But there were positives to take for an Arsenal side led by the brilliant SakaGetty
“We need to get over the line with a win, I don’t think many teams this season, or for a while, have dominated in that first period like we did.
“The penalty obviously gets given and the red card changes the game, even then we were defending really well and it was a bit of a lucky break, it bounced around in the box and Rodri pokes it home, so it’s a tough one to swallow.
“We need to get over the line in one of these big games and win it, but we made mistakes before and got punished four or five nil against Liverpool and Manchester City and today.
“There wasn’t too many shots on goal from them and we had quite a few efforts as well, so it shows a huge amount of progress.”
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