Ugly scenes erupted at the Emirates Stadium as Arsenal winger Gabriel Martinelli kicked the ball against Liverpool’s Conor Bradley and shoved him off the pitch. Bradley was lying on the ground, looked like he had sustained a knee injury before Martinelli displayed his frustration. The Liverpool players who saw the contact were furious; however, it was Liverpool defender Ibrahim Konate who ended up picking up the yellow card.
Martinelli, after the game, took to the instagram to post his apology. Conor and I have messaged and I’ve already apologised to him. I really didn’t understand he was seriously injured in heat of the moment. I want to say I’m deeply sorry for reacting. Sending Conor all my best again for a quick recovery.”
Reacting to the incident, Liverpool manager Arne Slot said: “I don’t know Gabriel Martinelli but he comes across as a nice guy.”
“I think the problem for him is, and it’s a problem in general in football, that there is so much time-wasting and players pretending they are injured in the final parts of the game, that you can then sometimes be annoyed if you want to score a goal that you think the player is time-wasting.
“I cannot ask of Gabriel Martinelli in the 94th minute when it’s so emotional for him to understand he is playing Liverpool – a team when we played Leeds and a player was held but didn’t go to the floor, or played West Ham United and my players try to drag Paqueta out of a situation where he was getting a second yellow card.
“I’m 100% sure that if he knew what the injury might be that he would never do (what he did). But it doesn’t look great if he (Bradley) has the injury which we fear he might have.
“But time-wasting and diving in football has come to the situation where players think in the 94th minute that it’s happening again, because I’ve seen it happen against us so many times this season.
Story continues below this ad
“I can understand Martinelli might have thought this was time-wasting and didn’t think this was Liverpool.”