‘He was bored’ – Martin Keown slams Gary Neville for scathing criticism of Arsenal star | Football

Martin Keown has slammed Gary Neville for ‘inflaming the situation’ with his comments about Gabriel Martinelli after the Arsenal forward’s shove on an injured Conor Bradley.

Last Thursday’s heavyweight clash proved a game of few clear-cut chances as the reigning Premier League champions held top-of-the-table Arsenal to a goalless draw at the Emirates.

But while the contest itself failed to live up to the pre-match hype, there was a moment of high drama in stoppage time as tempers frayed and Martinelli managed to make himself public enemy No.1 among Liverpool fans.

As the Gunners searched in vain for a winner, Liverpool defender Bradley went down in a heap on the touchline after putting the ball out of play for a throw-in.

Bradley appeared in some discomfort on the turf, but there was little sympathy from Martinelli, who threw the ball at the Northern Irishman before pushing his opponent off the pitch with some force so play could continue.

Martinelli was quick to issue an apology to Bradley for ‘misunderstanding’ the situation after the game and it later emerged that the Liverpool full-back had sustained a serious knee injury, ruling him out for the remainder of the season.

‘You can’t push him off the pitch,’ an irate Neville said on Sky Sports’ commentary of the match.

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‘You cannot do that. You idiot. That is so poor.

‘I am surprised one of the Liverpool players have not gone over and had a right pop at him. I think an apology is needed.

‘He’s thrown the ball at him as well. That is no good. I am actually fuming with Martinelli.

‘I don’t know how the Liverpool players didn’t go over and absolutely whack him to be honest with you and take a red card. Absolutely disgraceful, that.’

Keown was less than impressed by Neville’s remarks, claiming the former Manchester United and England right-back was simply ‘bored’ and trying to create a ‘narrative’.

On Neville’s suggestion that Bradley’s team-mates should have given Martinelli a ‘whack’, Keown told talkSPORT host Jim White: ‘In press conferences, managers don’t answer Gary Neville’s questions and I’m not going to answer them here.

‘Why are you asking me to respond to Gary Neville? I don’t really give a hoot what Gary Neville says.

‘He’s just trying to inflame the situation when he’s got nothing else to do in the commentary position.

‘He was bored, it wasn’t a great game and he was making that the narrative.

‘If he was my colleague then I would have said, “Hey come on, you’ve reacted in the wrong way there, you didn’t quite understand”.

‘He [Martinelli] has apologised and it ends there.’

Keown is confident there was no malice in Martinelli’s actions and the Brazilian simply felt his opponent was ‘feigning injury’ and ‘time-wasting’ in the heat of the moment.

‘When you behave like that, you can’t control what people say,’ he added.

‘The thing to do is to correct it as soon as possible and I just feel he got wrapped up in that a little bit.

‘He didn’t see Conor Bradley go down and it was obviously, clearly a very bad injury. I think he thought he was feigning injury and just trying to time-waste.’

Keown couldn’t speak highly enough of Martinelli’s character and was pleased to see the attacker return with his first senior hat-trick in Arsenal’s FA Cup victory over Portsmouth on Sunday.

‘He’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in football,’ Keown went on.

‘He’s very courteous, he speaks to me on the touchline and when I saw what was happening, I think it was just a misinterpretation from himself.

‘Jeremie Frimpong was on the floor two or three times, the ball was begging to be put out of play and Arsenal didn’t do that. It just had this sort of tetchiness around the game and he just misread that.

‘He made his apology, an awful lot was made of it and it was great to see him get a hat-trick yesterday.’

On the Gunners’ coming back from a goal down to secure a place in the fourth round of the FA Cup, Keown went on: ‘I thought Portsmouth did quite well in the opening exchanges and put Arsenal on their backsides really.

‘Arsenal were 1-0 down, they had to climb themselves out of a bit of a hole and they scored three goals from set-pieces.’

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