Arsenal were wrongly denied a penalty during their Premier League match at Aston Villa, the league's Key Match Incidents Panel has confirmed — and the defender who made the foul should also have been sent off.

The KMI Panel ruled unanimously, by a vote of 5-0, that referee Jarred Gillett made an on-field error and that video assistant referee James Bell missed an opportunity to intervene when Ian Maatsen fouled Bruno Guimaraes inside the Aston Villa penalty area.

What happened in the box

The incident occurred eight minutes into stoppage time, with Arsenal leading 1-0. Guimaraes drove into the box and Maatsen made a desperate lunge in an attempt to prevent the Brazil international from getting his shot away.

The panel was unequivocal in its assessment. "Clear contact was made on the attacker's standing leg and Maatsen made no contact with the ball," the KMI Panel stated. It added that "the challenge was reckless and therefore a second caution should have been awarded" — meaning Maatsen should have been dismissed.

A pattern of costly errors for Arsenal

This ruling marks the first refereeing error officially recorded against Arsenal since January 2025, when VAR failed to intervene to overturn Myles Lewis-Skelly's red card in Arsenal's match against Wolverhampton Wanderers. That decision also drew significant scrutiny at the time.

The KMI Panel's findings carry no power to change the result of the match, but they serve as an official acknowledgement that Arsenal were denied what should have been both a penalty and a numerical advantage at a critical moment in the game.