Neville accused of ‘frankly disgraceful’ Arsenal reaction and ‘inflammatory’ Liverpool comments | OneFootball

The fury against Arsenal forward Gabriel Martinelli has been directed back onto Gary Neville for his ‘frankly disgraceful’ and ‘inflammatory’ reaction.

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The inevitable Arsenal pushback

Ah yes, as sure as night follows day, an Arsenal setback invites the crazies out to scream ‘choking’ and ‘evil man’ at the moon. Getting rarer and rarer these days guys, hope you’re channelling all this pent up energy into something more productive in your personal lives for your sakes.

Quickly, overall Liverpool clearly the better team, it was very disappointing from Arsenal who looked a bit caught in headlights by Liverpool’s rondos in midfield – like they were caught between pressing or not pressing and so defaulted to their passive defence (which lets be clear, prevented Liverpool from having a single shot on target) until a chance came.

Are they going to choke? Well I suppose if they play McAllister, Gravenbech and Szoboszlai at their best every week, we could be in for a lot of draws. But we’re not, so not particularly worried about a specific repeat of what we saw yesterday. And again, Arsenal actually had all the shots on target and might even have stolen it at the end, so I dunno, I don’t think this moves the needle on our chances.

But boy does it let some people revel in the narrative. Ok, Martinelli f**ked up and unsurprisingly apologised for it straight away. But the way you all jump to the worst conclusion because you want us to be the baddies…

Slot, entirely fairly and magnanimously saw it for what it was and said it straightaway in interview – Bradley goes down, is moving on and off the pitch, Martinelli accidentally bounces the ball into him while putting it down to restart the game (you can see him put a hand on Bradley to apologise), then as Bradley moves back on the pitch, which Szoboslai acknowledges in his interview and looks very clear on the camera, Martinelli assumes he’s trying to come back on to slow the game down and shoves him.

Should he do it. No, it’s a dick move, a yellow card and given the context, a big apology. But he didn’t see Bradley go down. He didn’t get the slo mo replay of his knee buckling. Martinelli himself has had some brutal knee issues and let’s be clear, is a really good dude, so if he had known the extent of what had happened I can guarantee you he would not have done it.

But let’s again put that on the pile of evidence we have a raging cauldron of hate at our club (despite leading the table for fair play and in fact being a regular fixture in the top 3 for a large part of Arteta’s management).

Trossard on Wirtz? There are countless collisions with more in it than that a week, come on. Frimpong going down? He was fine, he got back up the moment the game stopped and played the rest of the match (and again, turned his ankle himself). You play to the whistle, that is the rule. The ref decides if the game should be called back for an injury while the other team has advantage.

I realise in particular for Liverpool fans that your lovely hugs and kisses rivalry with City didn’t let you scratch your ‘big meanie’ itch, but you do realise this is all confected right? That Arsenal and Liverpool have a long respectful history (including a lot of stuff around Hillsborough). That Arteta has always talked about Liverpool with great reverence and us Arsenal fans really hold nothing against you? We have actual shits (looking at you Chelsea) running round our back yard to deal with.

So this is pretty tiring. Maybe it’s a response to you feeling like we didn’t let you fully enjoy your last title because we pretty reasonably pointed to all of our key players missing large parts of the season as a reason we couldn’t sustain a title charge. Maybe that’s just the reality of modern football these days and when/if we win, we’ll accept that things broke our way too.

Who knows. But again, as sure as night follows day, people will come out to attack Arsenal after an even mildly disappointing result and, as always, I’ll be here to push back. Tom (Gyokeres really now starting to look a true bust though, my original fears confirmed) Leyton

I see the predictable deluge of hate from so-called football fans has started again. Here’s my view of the Liverpool game.

Arsenal dominated the first half, and carved out some good chances. Liverpool grew into the game in the second half, and showed why they were champions, without actually registering a shot on target.

No-one has mentioned this, but the weather was atrocious and in my opinion, had an impact on the game.

Arsenal did what any team chasing a title should do when they couldn’t find the breakthrough goal. They didn’t concede. They defended doggedly and Pool didn’t get a shot on target. Gyokeres will have better games, for sure. Whilst he’s not banging in the goals like he did in Portugal, he’s bringing a lot to the team.

Fans were high on a combination of the Villa result and the other title challengers dropping points in the midweek fixtures. The thought of going 8 points clear was on Arsenal fans’ minds. From that point of view, and reflecting on the quality of the game, it was a disappointment, but far from a catastrophe.

The Martinelli incident. Regrettable, yes and he has since come out and apologised. But these calls for him to get banned and have his yellow card upgraded is ludicrous. Did Nelli cause the injury? No. Bradley inched himself onto the pitch to stop the game, before Nelli did what he did. Let’s see just how bad his injury is before launching into the drama. It’s not exactly Roy Keane standing over the stricken Alfie Haaland, is it? We’ve seen players get away with much more, such as Keane and that other esteemed Sky broadcaster, Gary Neville.

On the Neviller. His comments that Pool players should ‘do him and take the red card’ was frankly disgraceful. He might have got away with a lot at United (such as hacking down talents like Jose Antonio Reyes) when they were not the mid-table mediocrity they are now, but such comments were inflammatory, dangerous and Neville and Sky should be held to account as a result. They won’t, but they should.

Regards, Paul, Bath. 

Speak of the Neville

There is a narrative that the young kids don’t have the attention span for football. I am bloke in my 50’s who doesn’t do social media, watches a lot of Leinster Senior League (top level of  amateur football in Dublin) and really only watch the PL via the YouTube highlight packages.

Last night I watched Arsenal v Liverpool and while not a classic thoroughly enjoyed it, with one exception, bloody Gary Neville.

He is so f***ing irritating, his voice is way too squeaky, his lack of anything insightful to say, calling for half the Liverpool to get sent off by smacking Martinelli, genius. He made me think why I stopped watching full matches and it’s the co-commentator! Why are they there, very few have anything useful to say that the commentator can’t see or the viewer, but they keep spouting shite.

If Sky introduces a premium service to mute the co comms I’m back in to watch live football. Mel – Dublin, Berlin, Athlone Town (Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher are the voices of modern football, no wonder the youth have a short attention span (and the old))

Arsenal v Liverpool maths

As expected, lots of knee-jerk reactions in this morning’s mailbox to Arsenal not beating the reigning champions. People forget that winning the Premier League isn’t easy and having a 6 point lead with 17 games to go is actually a good thing!

But the important thing about last night is while 3 points would have been very nice it deprived Liverpool of a win and confirmed, if there ever was any doubt, that it is now a three-horse race. The most Liverpool can get is 86 points, which won’t be enough.

In order for City (or Villa) to get to 92 points, which would be the target to put pressure on Arsenal, they would need 16 wins and a draw from their last 17 games. Not impossible, but unlikely with the current team. More realistic is that both will drop points and that Arsenal probably “only” need 13 wins from their last 17 games to get 88, which would be enough this season.

So no, Arsenal aren’t “bottling it” but are steady and still on course.

Reaping sown

If Frimpong didn’t lay down for 5 minutes in the first half when it clearly was not warranted, in an obvious attempt at gamesmanship, would Martinelli have felt as inclined to disbelieve the seriousness of Bradley’s plight?

I think this needs to be considered amidst all of the hand wringing, especially from Liverpool fans. Act like cheaters, get treated like cheaters. Sean, AFC

People need to listen to Slot’s comments on the incident after the game, very much trying to sensibly diffuse the situation. Martinelli read the situation wrong, no doubt about that and he shouldn’t have done what he did. He has apologised (not just because Gary Neville told him to, after advocating an assault on him *clutches pearls tightly*).

It is also reasonable to suggest that Martinelli didn’t realise Bradley was genuinely injured, because as Slot says, many players feign injury all the time to waste time or get the game stopped (including my own team), and that on seeing Bradley move himself further back on the pitch Martinelli’s thoughts would have gone more towards Bradley trying to waste time than be concerned with his own injury, deducing he can’t be that badly injured then.

A 0-0 with nothing to talk about so the usual suspects have to create a sensationalist headline and faux outrage. This morning’s mailbox had rival fans saying Trossard ‘deserved a red for risking a second yellow’ and Martinelli needs a significant and lengthy ban – not sure under what law of the game that would be?

I’d prefer to eradicate career ending two footed tackles or players who deliberately push their opponents in to advertising hoardings (see the recent death of Billy Vigar) but maybe others know better.  As always, when it comes to Arsenal people become deliberately stupid.

Yes, Liverpool played well, the 6-4-0 1st half formation which blended well to the 4-6-0 formation in the second half and gave Arsenal a lesson in keep ball with no threat.  If we decide to move the goalposts from what was expected of Liverpool this season then of course shower them with praise for going to Arsenal playing well and earning a point and keep up their hopes of top 4, but if you add the context of what was expected of Liverpool then you need to add a ‘but’ at the end of the praise, but they’re 14 points off the pace in what has to be described as a disastrous title defence so far.

Everyone seems to treat every time Arsenal don’t win as a a monumental crisis, an opportunity to lump in on them, to criticise the manager, the tactics, the mentality. We’ve been criticised even when we win games.  Arsenal’s is always the highest bar to clear.  We have a strange football world where Arsenal are continually told we must win the title, the title is ours to lose, but Arteta and the team never actually receiving any credit for putting the club in the position to allow people to say those things.

Arsenal are doing fine, there is a long way to go and there will be more disappointing results for everyone.  Currently everyone else is looking more vulnerable.  The lead has increased from 2 to 6 points and we’ve already played 3rd and 4th twice in the league. Rich, AFC  

Football played abroad

I just saw that the French Cup Final was played in Kuwait. I am neither a Marseille or a PSG fan, nor do I live in the country of the team I support so going to games is a no go for me.

But, if i were a Marseille or PSG fan, and you told me I had to travel to the middle east to watch my countries cup final, i would be pissed. What kind of shit is this?

Play your exhibition matches, play your friendlies wherever, but this kind of thing really gets my blood flowing… Nik (funnily enough), Paris

i take it back. French Cup final has apparently been doing that since 2009.My bad. still though Nik

Some quick thoughts on Newcastle

What a strange season. Teams beating each other everywhere, the PL waxing lyrical about their ‘wheel of defeats’ to demonstrate the league’s excitement and unpredictability. Whilst that is true – I bet most fans of almost every club are feeling immense frustration at their team’s inability to click.

For NUFC it’s been mad, and my emotions get the better of me at times in feeling like Eddie has slipped back into ‘gatekeeper’ mode and isn’t the man for the next level. Our ‘frustrations’ (I won’t call them problems) are clear:

Constant injuries across the backline all season not allowing for a settled back 4

Our much-lauded midfield 3 being somewhat exposed as athletes rather than controllers (this doesn’t apply to Bruno)

Our wingers completely misfiring after being the main source of goal contributions in the last few seasons

Our unfortunate striker situation, being a team built around a certain type of forward that we tried to replicate in Ekitike, and instead did a 180 on with Woltemade. Great player, different style

The lack of a fit Wissa, paying the price for his pre-season antics

Howe’s tactical inability to fill in the gaps between our midfield and defence

And our lack of creativity to unlock the many low blocks we face – a real Howe blind spot

Frustrating points lost against Spurs, Chelsea, Leverkusen

Terrible defeats against Man Utd (a game i fully lost it at), West Ham, Sunderland,  the performance at Brentford

We’ve got clear positives, Bruno finds new ways to deepen himself into legendary status every game. Lewis Hall is absolutely brilliant and should start in the WC, as is Lewis Miley.

Yet we’ve won 3 games and we’re now 6th? It’s just odd. Villa clicked, I really do hope we actually click, because I’d be lying if I said the 3 wins were done in dominant, controlling fashion. We’re in the midst of a mega January, fighting on 4 fronts with a draining semi-final 2-legger against Pep to come, PSG away – even a resurgent away game against Wolves will test us.

We could achieve so much, but the ‘frustrations’ need to lessen, as I’m sure in this crazy season, they need to for most teams. That’s football though. Harry, York