Gary Neville has condemned the “disgraceful” behavior of Arsenal winger Gabriel Martinelli, who tried to push Conor Bradley off the pitch as he lay injured in what appeared to be a serious injury during Arsenal’s goalless draw with Liverpool.
Martinelli’s shove of Bradley caused outrage among Liverpool players and staff. Arsenal’s forward also dropped the ball to the full-back, who was carried off on a stretcher.
Sky Sports’ Gary Neville said in commentary immediately after the incident: “You can’t take him off the pitch! You can’t do that. It’s too bad. I think there needs to be an apology.”
“Bradley is being carried away on a stretcher. To be honest, I’m mad at Martinelli. It’s a disgrace.”
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Roy Keane and former Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge react to Gabriel Martinelli’s attempt to force Conor Bradley off the pitch late in the game
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta defended Martinelli, saying the winger was unaware of the severity of Bradley’s injury.
“Gabi is an incredibly nice guy, but she probably didn’t understand what happened,” he said at a press conference.
“I hope Connor is OK. I’m going to talk to him now to figure it out. But he probably didn’t realize what happened.”
After the game, manager Roy Keane added: “It’s not good. We know football and our players are good players.”
“I threw him the ball, I stood over him and gave him a little knee bump. He tried to force him off.
“That act is absolutely disgraceful. He’s a good kid to turn himself over. Hopefully Martinelli sees that and hopefully he apologizes for it. That’s not a good thing.”
Daniel Sturridge added: “It’s disappointing. You have passion and you want to be a winner and you want to help your teammates, but as a footballer you have to be respectful.”
“It’s never a good feeling to be injured. Martinelli thinks he’s wasting his time, but you have to be aware enough to see him drop. He’s been in that situation before.
“That’s rude. It’s probably worse than rude.”
In a goalless match, Bradley came closest to scoring after hitting the bar through some Gunners defensive confusion.
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Arsenal, Conor Bradley gets confused at the back before hitting the bar!
Arteta: ‘I have no intention of harming Bradley’
Arteta told Sky Sports he believed Martinelli had “no intention” of harming Bradley.
“He probably doesn’t know (that Bradley is injured),” Arteta said.
“I don’t know what happened to Connor and I hope he’s OK, but clearly Gabi doesn’t have any intentions of doing anything bad to him.
Arteta added in the post-match press conference: “If anyone knows Gabi, he’s an incredibly nice guy, but he probably didn’t understand what happened.”
“I’m going to talk to him now to figure it out, but he probably didn’t realize what happened.”
Slott: I’m afraid the worst will happen to Bradley.
Liverpool manager Arne Slott said after the game that he feared the “worst-case scenario” for Bradley, who has already missed a significant amount of this season through injury.
“I don’t know Gabriel Martinelli, but he seems like a nice guy,” Slott said.
“The problem for him, and it’s a problem across the whole of football, is that there’s so much wasted time at the end of the game that it feels like players are pretending to be injured when you want to score and it can be frustrating.
“I’m 100 percent sure that if he knew what the injury was, he wouldn’t have done that. But if he was injured, it doesn’t look very good and of course we’re concerned that he might be injured.”
“The football, the wasting of time, the diving, the players are in a situation where in the 94th minute they are probably thinking it’s happening again, because we’ve seen it happen against us so many times this season.
“I can understand that Martinelli might have thought this was a waste of time as well.”
“It’s far from a formal title for a lackluster Arsenal side.”
Sky Sports’ Nick Wright at Emirates Stadium:
They are six points behind Arsenal. A goalless draw with Liverpool was by no means a disaster. But if they play as badly as they did in the second half, this title is far from a formality.
Manchester City’s failure to beat Brighton meant Mikel Arteta’s side had a chance to move eight points clear, but the odds were never high on a frustrating night for the hosts at the wet and windy Emirates Stadium.
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Highlights of the Premier League match between Arsenal and Liverpool
There were moments of promise, at least in the first half, but Liverpool continued to defend resolutely and continued to do so after half-time, but Arsenal’s modest attacking threat was further diminished and the visitors were able to dominate the ball.
This was uncharacteristic, especially given that Arsenal had scored consecutive goals in the 15 minutes after half-time in recent games. However, this onslaught did not materialize.
In the end, Gabriel almost scored with a header. The defender was left holding his head in his hands. However, it was one of only three shots Arsenal had in the second period, all of which came in stoppage time. Liverpool absolutely deserved a point.
