Arsenal have been told by an ex-Premier League referee that Mikel Merino should've been sent off against Aston Villa. The Gunners clinched a crucial 4-1 win over their title rivals on Tuesday night at the Emirates Stadium, though the closing half-an-hour could have unfolded quite differently.

Strikes from Gabriel Magalhaes and Martin Zubimendi, within a four-minute second-half spell, put Arsenal ahead, with a major controversy arising just shy of the hour-mark. As Morgan Rogers appeared to break through, Merino hauled him back by his shirt to concede a foul.

Villa players argued that it ought to have been the Spaniard's second booking of the showdown - having already received a caution for fouling Amadou Onana just before half-time. Former Premier League official Mark Halsey has subsequently been asked his view on the incident.

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He posted on X (formerly Twitter): "Hi Mark, this was a deliberate holding offence by Merino on Rogers that should have resulted in a 2nd [yellow card emoji] for denying a promising attack."

When questioned whether it crosses a referee's mind that a player has already been cautioned, Halsey replied: "Not every challenge is a [yellow card emoji], Mark."

"Referee's will judge challenge's on its merits, IMO there are far to many [yellow card emoji] shown unnecessarily referee's have lost the art of managing these players - the holding offence by Merino was a nailed on 2nd [yellow card emoji]."

Had Merino been sent off, Villa might have clawed their way back into the match, but Arteta swiftly subbed him out to prevent that possibility.

Leandro Trossard, in somewhat controversial fashion, and Gabriel Jesus later found the back of the net, with Ollie Watkins also scoring a consolation goal for Villa in stoppage time.

The victory put Arsenal six points ahead of Villa and piled pressure on title rivals Man City to break Sunderland's unbeaten record at the Stadium of Light.

Following the impressive win, a jubilant Arteta spoke at a press conference, saying: "I'm so happy. We play every three days, we played an opponent that comes from 11 wins in a row. A superb team, very difficult to play against, and we knew that we were going to have periods throughout the game."

"We talked about emotionally how demanding it was going to be and we struggled in the first ten minutes, arriving a bit late, playing through us and creating some open space situations that they are very dangerous at.

"Then we adjusted, got a bit more control, two big chances by Viktor [Gyokeres] and the one was a scrappy situation inside the box. We didn't manage to score in the second half.

"We competed for everything then much better. The timing was better and the goal was fulfilled in an extraordinary way, so efficient in everything that we did.

"Unlike the last few games where we had so many big situations, today we were very prolific and accurate to make the difference."