Arteta Was 'Confused' by Havertz's Offside Free Kick — and the Laws of the Game Say Arsenal Should Have Had a Penalty vs. Hull

Mikel Arteta said he was "confused" after Arsenal's 1-0 win over Hull City, and the Laws of the Game suggest he had good reason. Referee Farai Hallam went to the monitor in the 42nd minute, announced that Hull's Nobel Mendy had held Kai Havertz inside the box, and then gave Hull a free kick for offside. Several referee analysts said the order of events should have produced an Arsenal penalty instead.

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Arsenal won anyway. Martin Odegaard pounced on a rebound in the 72nd minute after Hull's goalkeeper could not hold Noni Madueke's near-post shot, and the leaders moved six points clear before Manchester City's late kickoff at Nottingham Forest. It was Arsenal's fifth straight league win, their seventh Premier League clean sheet, and, as BBC Sport's Chris Wise noted, nine wins from 10 games equals the club's best start to a Premier League season.

Havertz had his shirt pulled by Mendy as the ball came into the area. Hallam missed it in real time, and play ran on for about a minute before VAR stopped the game and sent him to the screen.

The Premier League Match Centre then explained the call: "After review, there is a holding offence by Blue No.32 on Red No.29. However, Red No.29 is in an offside position, so the final decision will be a free-kick for offside to Hull City."

The Emirates crowd cheered when Hallam described the foul, assuming a penalty was coming. Seconds later the decision flipped.

Being in an offside position is not an offense by itself. A player only commits an offside offense when he becomes active, by playing the ball, attempting to play it or challenging an opponent for it.

The IFAB Laws of the Game cover this exact sequence: when a player in an offside position is moving toward the ball and "is fouled before playing or attempting to play the ball, or challenging an opponent for the ball, the foul is penalised as it has occurred before the offside offence."

That is why BBC Sport's football issues correspondent Dale Johnson called it "a very controversial VAR intervention." In his words, Havertz "did not commit an offside offence, and this should have been a spot-kick to Arsenal regardless of the offside." He pointed to a Newcastle–Bournemouth case a couple of seasons ago, when Fabian Schar was pulled back from just offside and a penalty was awarded after review. NBC Sports reached the same conclusion, and BBC pundit Dion Dublin called the explanation "clear as mud."

The awkward part for the officials is the review itself. VAR sent Hallam to the monitor for a potential penalty, he confirmed the foul, and the outcome still went the other way. If offside was always going to decide it, the trip to the screen added confusion rather than clarity.

Arteta did not go after the officials, but he did not pretend to understand the ruling either. "I was confused because when the referee went to the monitor I thought it was because it was a clear penalty," he told Sky Sports. "But they made a different decision based off the offside so I don't know, we don't have any clarity yet about the decision."

His bigger point was about his own team. Arsenal "had some big moments" they should have finished, he said, but "we don't hit the target, we don't get the final pass," so they had to rely on "generating so much volume" until Hull finally broke.

The goal came from the player Arteta singled out. Madueke drove into the box repeatedly, and Hull manager Sergej Jakirovic admitted that "when you have Madueke in the box 10 times... it's not easy to stop him."

Arteta revealed that Madueke was not playing before the first international break and, rather than take a holiday, "went to Portugal and got somebody to train with him and got in better shape." He called the winger "a great example for the rest of the group."

Jakirovic, whose side is winless since August, felt Hull "conceded a cheap goal" but insisted "we have shown we can compete at this level."

Arsenal have now won a string of games by a single goal, and the margin keeps holding. That is a title-race trait, but it also means a penalty decision like this one can matter more than it did on Saturday. If the officials' reading of the offside law stands, Arsenal and every other club will want to know which version applies next time.

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Arsenal go into the international break top of the table with a 100% home record. The win was routine in the end; the explanation for the penalty that wasn't is the part the Premier League still has to explain.