Arteta refuses to blame 'frustrating' technology for Hammers defeat

Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta says his side cannot blame a lack of VAR intervention for their damaging 2-0 home loss to West Ham.

David Moyes' visitors went ahead in the first half when Tomas Soucek prodded in a Jarrod Bowen cutback which was perilously close to going out of play.

The goal was given, however, after replays were unable to conclude whether the whole ball had crossed the line and Konstantinos Mavropanos' second-half header against his old club sealed an unlikely away win.

Arteta, who was caught up in an FA investigation for criticizing VAR earlier this season during a defeat to Newcastle, was much more reserved on this occasion.

He said: "They are saying it's not conclusive. 

"It's a shame that with the technology that we have that it's not that clear, so that we cannot say whether it's out or in. 

"But it's done. It's gone. There's nothing we can do about it now.

"If the technology we have at the moment is not good enough to give us that answer, what we have to do is without that, win the game. 

"With the number of situations we generated in the game, that should have been more than enough."

The Spaniard was full of praise for the Hammers' performance, even though he thought his players would have been good value for three points.

He added: "I congratulate West Ham and praise my players. 

"This is football. When you look at how much we generated in the game, to see the result is very disappointing. 

"But they were better than us in both boxes. They had two shots, with the penalty three. We had 30.

"If we don't score with 30 shots, then we have to do 50 or 60 to try to score. That's the only thing. 

"I can't imagine a game where we have more touches in the box, more dominance and less situations for the opponent against a really good West Ham side. 

"Today though, it wasn't enough to win the game."