Arne Slott defended Arsenal forward Gabriel Martinelli after the forward sparked a fury by pushing deep against the injured Conor Bradley in Liverpool’s goalless draw against the Gunners. Four minutes into stoppage time, Bradley tripped into the turf and suffered a serious knee injury, collapsing on the touchline. However, as Bradley writhes in pain, Martinelli throws the ball to the downed defender and tries to push him off the field while he is down. The Brazilian was labeled an “idiot” by Gary Neville on commentary.
Ibrahima Konate and other Liverpool players were furious at Martinelli, and Bradley was stretched off the pitch in agony, covering his face with his hands. However, Reds manager Slott refused to criticize the South American winger. He told Sky Sports: “Let’s hope for the best, but I fear the worst for Conor Bradley. If we have a player on the floor, 99 or 100 times out of 100, people can tell there’s something wrong with that player. I think you can see that too. You don’t like to see a player being moved when he could be injured that badly. I didn’t like to see my players being moved.”
Slott added at the press conference: “I don’t know Gabriel Martinelli, but I get the impression that he’s a good guy. The problem with him, and with football in general, is that he wastes so much time at the end of the game that it can be frustrating because it feels like players are pretending to be injured when they want to score. If he knew what the injury was, I’m 100 percent sure he wouldn’t have done that.”
Slott’s reaction was similar to Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta, who said: “Knowing Gabi, he probably doesn’t know. I don’t know what happened to Conor, but I hope it’s not bad. Obviously Gabi didn’t intend anything bad to happen to him.”
But a furious Neville said in his commentary during the match: “You can’t take him off the pitch, you can’t do that. It’s too bad. I’m surprised one of the Liverpool players didn’t go at him and hit him right-handed. I think an apology is due.”
“I’m angry at Martinelli. I don’t know why a Liverpool player punched him and didn’t get a red card. It’s absolutely disgraceful.” He added after the match: “I hope Martinelli goes to the Liverpool dressing room or the treatment room at full time and apologizes and says, ‘I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.’
Meanwhile, colleague Roy Keane added after the match: “I didn’t like it at all. I’m surprised the Liverpool players didn’t go after Martinelli a little more. That behavior is absolutely disgraceful. He’s a good boy to roll around on himself! Hopefully Martinelli sees that and hopefully apologizes. That’s not a good thing.”
Former Liverpool striker Daniel Sturridge, who sat alongside Keane as a commentator for Sky Sports, added: “It’s a shame to see. There’s passion, there’s a winner, there’s a desire to help your team-mates, but as a footballer you have to be respectful.”
“Injuries never feel good. Martinelli thinks he’s wasting his time, but he has to be aware enough to see him go down. He’s done things like that before. It’s disrespectful. It’s probably worse than disrespectful.”
And Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai reacted: “I saw Conor twisted his knee but I don’t know what’s going on with him. Obviously he didn’t want to go back on the pitch to waste time.”
“He was in so much pain that he couldn’t even think about where he was rolling. And you came there to push him off the field…I understand that you want to win, we want to win, but I think the health of the players is much more important than anything else.”
