Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta says the penalty his side conceded against Brighton is a decision he has ‘never seen in his career’.

The Gunners’ title challenge took another hit as they dropped points away to Brighton, drawing 1-1.

Teenager Ethan Nwaneri opened the scoring on his second Premier League start but was substituted at half-time.

The Seagulls found an equaliser from the penalty spot. Joao Pedro won the spot-kick after being fouled by William Saliba and sent David Raya the wrong way to score.

It was a controversial decision from referee Anthony Taylor, with Saliba’s head colliding with Pedro’s inside the box.

Arsenal boss Arteta was left perplexed by the decision to award a penalty, saying he, nor his players, have ever “seen anything like it”.

“I’ve never seen a decision like this in my career,” he said. “I asked the boys, and they have never seen anything like it.”

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The Spaniard added: “I’m disappointed because we wanted to win the game. We started the game with good actions and a good goal. We knew it was going to be a challenging game.

“We gave too many balls away in the second half and we’re very disappointed with the penalty. I’ve never seen that in my life – and Saliba touches the ball. [It wasn’t one] for me, no.

“We’re playing every three days. I understand how much we want to [win], but in terms of the quality and the consistency and doing the simple things right against a competitive team, we didn’t do enough today.”

On the title race, Arteta said: “We wanted to win and we weren’t able to do that. We’re very disappointed with the [penalty] decision. Other than that, we’ll try to improve and prepare for our next game.”

Meanwhile, Brighton head coach Fabian Hurzeler believes his side should have won.

Hurzeler said: “It should be more than a point. I’m standing here after the games and I feel like I have to repeat myself every time, which is disappointing.

“The big word for us is to be more consistent, to play how we want for 90 minutes. We came back but we were not clean enough in the final third. We had big chances.

“Against Arsenal, you have to use the momentum to win the game and we weren’t able to do it.”

Brighton scorer Pedro added: “We started the game well. We could have won but got a point. We need to look forward.

“We conceded in the first half but knew we could win this game. We tried to score at the beginning of the second half. We wanted to win.”

On the penalty decision, he said: “I tried to control the ball and then [Saliba] hit me.

“It’s good that I scored. I always try to be positive with goals and assists. I like the feeling [of scoring] and hopefully I’ll score more.”

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