Gabriel Martinelli broke his silence on Thursday night after getting into an altercation with injured Liverpool defender Conor Bradley.
Arsenal star Gabriel Martinelli has apologized for trying to force injured Liverpool defender Conor Bradley off the pitch during Thursday night’s 0-0 draw at the Emirates Stadium. The right-back landed awkwardly and remained down in stoppage time.
Bradley was chasing the ball and appeared to injure his knee while clearing a danger near the touchline. He immediately took to his knees as he fell to the ground to delay Arsenal’s restart of play.
After his throw-in was stopped, Martinelli dropped the ball to his full-back and protested to the Northern Ireland international. He then pushed him off the pitch and allowed play to resume.
read more: Roy Keane relents in verdict against Gabriel Martinelli: ‘An utter disgrace’read more: Arne Slott reacts to Arsenal outrage over Conor Bradley’s injury situation
Ibrahima Konate was booked for his involvement in the scuffle between the two teams, and Martinelli was also shown a yellow card. Bradley appeared to be seriously injured and was stretched afterwards.
After the game, Martinelli apologized to Bradley on social media and wished him well. “Connor and I have messaged and I have already apologized to him,” he wrote on his Instagram Story.
“We really did not realize that the heat at that time could have seriously injured him. We deeply apologize for the reaction. We will once again do everything in our power to help Conor make a speedy recovery.”
Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane branded Martinelli a “disgrace” during Sky Sports’ coverage of the Premier League match. “It’s not good. We know football and the players are good players,” he said.
“Throwing him the ball, standing over him and giving him a little knee bump. He tries to force him off. That behavior is absolutely disgraceful.
“He’s a good kid to roll over on his own. Hopefully Martinelli sees that and hopefully he apologizes. That’s not a good thing.”
Liverpool manager Arne Slott defended Martinelli’s actions in the post-match press conference. “I don’t know Gabriel Martinelli, but he seems like a nice guy,” he said.
“I think the problem for him, and it’s a problem in football as a whole, is that he wastes so much time and a lot of times a player pretends to be injured late in the game or during the game, and it can be frustrating when that player tries to score a goal that he thinks is a waste of time.
“You can’t ask Martinelli to think as clearly in the 94th minute,” Slott said of Bradley’s injury. “If he knew what the injury was, I’m 100% sure he never would have done that.
“If he’s injured, it’s not a good situation that we’re worried about. But the waste of time, the diving… we’ve seen it happen against us so many times this season, so I can understand that Martinelli might have thought this was also a waste of time.”
“He couldn’t have thought, ‘This is Liverpool, they don’t do that.'” Martinelli’s manager, Mikel Arteta, also defended the Brazilian, insisting Martinelli had no malicious intent.
“I don’t know what happened to Conor, but I hope it’s not bad,” Arteta said. “But clearly Gabi has no intention of doing anything bad to him.”
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