Back in the distant mists of the Premier League’s past there was a beautiful saying, a comfort to all in times of need: “These things even themselves out over the course of a season.”

Managers would repeat it like a sacred mantra, usually after they had benefited from a stroke of luck. The especially zen might deploy it ruefully, when things had not gone their way. Pundits could trot it out as a rhetorical dead end about all sorts of events which may or may not even themselves out: officiating, unfortunate bounces, goals scored via deflections off pitch-invading wildlife.

Sadly, this outlook is on the wane. Of course marginal VAR judgment calls are just as likely to even out as the old-fashioned (yet equally fallible) unaided view of a referee, but making officiating more clinical tempts fans to look for evidence of inconsistency, irregularity and suspected bias.

Enter Arsenal and their supporters, some of whom feel their team are on the wrong end of more borderline calls than others. Broadly, these fall into two categories: things that have happened to Arsenal but no other team and inconsistencies in rule application for similar incidents.

This weekend there was the penalty awarded against William Saliba at Brighton by Anthony Taylor. Arsenal’s defender clashed heads with João Pedro, but also made a slight touch on the ball beforehand. Telegraph Sport refereeing oracle Keith Hackett felt it was the correct decision, writing that Saliba was “careless and could – in fact should – have avoided his head coming into contact with Pedro’s.”

Alan Smith on Sky Sports was one of many struggling to remember a penalty from a similar incident, while Mikel Arteta called the decision “bizarre”. So some diversity of opinion, but the sense of injustice among Arsenal fans was not helped by Dejan Kulusevski’s shoulder into the head of Anthony Gordon going unpunished earlier on Saturday in Spurs vs Newcastle. Nor when a video was posted by an Arsenal fan of Nottingham Forest scoring against Arsenal last season after a similar clash of heads between Joe Worrall and Kai Havertz.

Then an incident from Tuesday night’s EFL Cup semi-final, when Alexander Isak appeared to push Martin Odegaard shortly before scoring the opening goal. The match was broadcast on ITV and Sky Sports simultaneously, with Les Ferdinand and Jamie Redknapp respectively dissecting the shove, powering more social media outrage. VAR made no intervention and Theo Walcott said: “There will be a lot of people that think that’s a foul but you can always tell by the players’ reactions that it’s not, and Odegaard hasn’t reacted that way.”

In August’s home game against Brighton, Declan Rice received a second yellow card for a tiny nudge on the ball as Joël Veltman wound up for a free-kick. Letter-of-the-law types found Rice bang to rights, including referee Chris Kavanagh who said he had “no choice” but to award the card.

That rather overlooked Veltman kicking Rice in what may or may not have been an attempt to take the free-kick in question, the ball still moving at the time Rice tapped it and frequent Arsenal antagonist Pedro escaping without a booking for a far more forceful delayed restart incident in the first half.

Leandro Trossard echoed Rice in September by being sent off for hoofing the ball into the air moments after Michael Oliver blew his whistle at Manchester City. Rasmus Hojlund was not booked for the same infringement at Liverpool last weekend, when Oliver was also the referee.

Further back, Gabriel Martinelli was sent off against Wolves in February 2022 for two yellow cards in the same move, another moment for which few could remember a precedent and another incident presided over by Oliver. In February 2023, a Brentford goal at Arsenal was wrongly allowed to stand when VAR failed to draw offside lines correctly.

So what does it all mean? One thing is clear. The modern environment gives these previously ephemeral moments a new level of juice. A refereeing decision’s shelf life as viable content was once concluded after that night’s phone-ins and highlights shows. Now the slow-motion clips live on indefinitely thanks to democratised access to video. Those who wish to can look at debatable moments forever and publish them to whichever platform they choose, barring copyright infringement.

The chronically online football fan often leans disastrously into their team for a sense of identity. Hyper-partisan, hostile and mistrustful, conspiracies are suspected at every turn. This landscape puts people with too much time on their hands and questionable motivation to the fore.

Arsenal’s fanbase is unusually large and engaged online, to a level few clubs can match. Hence talk of an anti-Arsenal agenda in officiating. And this season, maybe they have a point?

Arsenal have been unfortunate not victimised

There are plenty of moments where Arsenal have been unfortunate and even objectively wronged. Irritating, certainly. But possibly just unlucky too. Arsenal are victims of the normal vicissitudes of an unpredictable and low-scoring sport in which tiny moments can decide matches. Referees strive for consistency, much like players; both are equally fallible and prone to mistakes.

People sometimes contradict themselves and inconsistency can manifest as a result of fury about a previous decision. Perhaps the outrage over Arsenal’s kicking-the-ball-away yellows in the autumn has led, even unconsciously, to a more liberal interpretation of the rules this winter to avoid similar fury.

Alternatively, there is some malevolent force acting against Arsenal because Howard Webb has a childhood vendetta and has run out of pin space on his Ray Parlour voodoo doll. Which seems most likely to you?