Arsene Wenger feels Arsenal lost to Watford due to an “unbelievable” penalty decision.

Arsenal had the chance to continue their good run form on Saturday evening but managed to throw away three points against Watford.

The turning point of the game came in the second half, when Brazilian forward Richarlison threw himself to the ground during a race with Hector Bellerin. The dive successfully duped referee Neil Swabrick into awarding a penalty.

Troy Deeney converted, and Watford went to win the game thanks to a late winner from Tom Cleverley.

Wenger had much to say about the penalty decision, and believes it was hard for Arsenal to take.

“The penalty? It was never a penalty. It’s unbelievable to lose a game because of that,” he told Arsenal.com.

“It’s unbelievably hard to take because we had the opportunity to win the game. We played very well in the first half and in the second half we dropped our level a little bit. Physically we were not at the same level and on top of that we missed chances to score the second goal.

“After that we were punished by a bad refereeing decision. There’s a lot to swallow tonight and a lot to be really disappointed [about].”

Amongst all the controversy, Arsenal’s performance notably dipped in the second half after a first half you could best describe as “functional”. Wenger has the usual explanations: physically jaded, missed chances, not good enough in the final third, and so on.

On top of that, Wenger feels his side lacked composure in the final stages of the game and grew nervous.

“[At 1-1 we should] be calmer and not lift the ball so much, play on the ground and focus more on the quality of our game.

“I think we became nervous and we lost our composure when it was 1-1.”

It’s a worrying state of affairs when the team’s response to in-game adversity isn’t to rally and improve, but to wilt under pressure.

We all feel hard done by the penalty, but there’s no excuse for the pity party that occurred after it.