Martinelli insists “nasty” Brentford challenge deserved red card | OneFootball

Gabriel Martinelli has criticised a “nasty” challenge from Brentford’s Christian Norgaard, insisting it could have broken his leg and deserved a red card.

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In spite of a frustrating draw with Brentford, Arsenal fans wouldn’t have been too aggrieved at Saturday’s dropped points, with focus already turning towards the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid on Wednesday.

The one exception was a heavy challenge from Christian Norgaard on Gabriel Martinelli, with the Brentford man flying into a challenge with no intention to play the ball and catching the Arsenal winger with a scissor motion and both feet off the floor.

Norgaard was only shown a yellow card for the incident, but Martinelli told the media afterwards that it was a dangerous foul that probably deserved a red.

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“I didn’t see that again but in my opinion, in the moment, if my foot was on the floor he could break my leg,” Martinelli said. “He said he didn’t mean it, I believe him, but still, you know, he could have [broken] my leg.

“For me, it was red. I need to see it again to be sure. But yeah, for me, it was nasty.”

You can certainly understand Martinelli’s point of view, and even Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp – who didn’t think it was a red card – admitted it could have caused an injury.

“It’s not a great tackle, it’s actually a tackle that can hurt people, because you can see it’s a twisting motion on Martinelli’s knee,” Redknapp explained. “It is a real risk, I actually had a bad injury from someone doing a very similar tackle like that to me.

“It can happen, because you get your leg caught under it and it twists your knee. He’s obviously lucky it doesn’t happen in this situation.”

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Quite why Redknapp feels we shouldn’t give red cards for challenges that are “lucky” if they don’t end in serious injuries is unclear. If the rules don’t categorise this incident as a sending-off offence, perhaps we need to change that before the next bad injury.