Almost every player dives or try to make a faul look worse or fakes a injury. Clubs complain against the refereeing all the time. The rules becomes more black and white to decrease the risk of doing a subjective call that is wrong. Clubs still complain because the penalty is sometimes to harsh given the situation. VAR gets involved. Clubs still complain because it takes to Long to make a call. VAR try to hurry things up which results in more human made errors. Clubs complain again. VAR gets more control and takes trippel the time to make a call just to be sure. And it continues…
I just miss the old times where we had a ref who got the respect needed to make calls. Some refs looked as he could kill you with his fist if you started complaining. Yes there where wrong calls, but clubs respected that as part of the game. Get offside techology. Keep the goal line tech. Let VAR only look for malicious attempts which happens behind the refs eye sight. Soon TV will start using the VAR situations as advertising spot lol
I think the Pundits was more critical of the official statement from the club rather than Arteta. Atleast Neville and Carragher. They said that they liked that Arteta showed his emotions after the game. How rival fans act is another thing, but it’s not their job to be objective.
I think in general fans and journalists take quotes without context to fit their narrative or to stir up a heated debate.
Most Pundits understands that all the complaining on the refereeing will only increase both the the frequency and length which VAR is used and undermine the ref on the pitch even more.