Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk says the whole squad was angry at Gabriel Martinelli’s antics after Conor Bradley suffered a serious knee injury against Arsenal
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk reacts during the match against Arsenal (Image: )
Virgil van Dijk has admitted that “everyone was unhappy” with Gabriel Martinelli after his split with Conor Bradley.
Van Dijk was furious after Arsenal forward Martinelli caused a scene by appearing to drag Bradley off the pitch, but it later emerged that the Liverpool defender had suffered a serious knee injury.
Martinelli has since publicly apologized and reached out to Bradley to convey his apologies, also claiming that he “didn’t really understand” that he had been seriously injured.
Bradley, who left the game on crutches and a knee brace, was injured and clearly in pain, but a huge scuffle broke out at the end of the stalemate between Liverpool and Arsenal as Martinelli tried to push him off the pitch.
Liverpool captain Van Dijk said: “Everyone was unhappy at that moment. It wasn’t just a few players, it was all of them, and rightfully so, because Conor was on the pitch and to push him off the pitch is really not a good sight.”
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“For you guys, it’s very clear to analyze from the clip. For us, it went very quickly. A long ball came, Connor went for it, fell to the pitch, obviously Martinelli pushed him off the pitch, and our players reacted.”
“We all worked together. I had no idea what actually happened, but it doesn’t look good and Martinelli doesn’t look good.
“We are now focused on Conor. He will undergo a medical test in the next 24 hours and we will have to adapt to that.”
Arsenal’s Gabriel Martinelli tries to push Liverpool’s Conor Bradley off the pitch, who appears to be seriously injured (Image: Javier Garcia/Shutterstock)
Liverpool took one point in a hard-fought battle with Arsenal, extending their unbeaten run to 10 games. Van Dijk admitted they weren’t very good away, but said they executed a “fantastic” game plan.
He added: “Our thoughts are first and foremost with Conor. We hope it’s not the worst, but it doesn’t look very good. Other than that, our game plan was outstanding in my opinion.”
“We gave their centre-backs the ball because we felt they couldn’t score ID and that’s why they didn’t create many chances against us.
“It doesn’t look good, but you can take risks and go for one-on-ones, but we all know the game is 90 minutes and at some point there will be space to play and that’s what happened in the second half.
Van Dijk took the points at the top of the table and praised his team’s performance (Image: )
“We were great with the ball. I felt like we could have had a chance to score more than one point, but I’m really proud of the players for playing against a very well-formed team.”
“No team runs and presses for the full 90 minutes like they did in the first 20 or 30 minutes, so we had to keep fighting and let them find ideas they couldn’t do. And we knew they were going to try to come up with something with a midfielder in between the centre-backs.
“The team made a big change in their defensive work and in the second half of possession we were outstanding and found the right players between the lines.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t create any big chances, but with the squad we have now, even though we are missing two proper number nines, they still performed outstandingly and we will get the point.”
