Christian Norgaard has admitted he said sorry to Gabriel Martinelli after his dangerous challenge on Saturday, claiming the Arsenal player accepted his apology.
Brentford captain Christian Norgaard didn’t make many friends at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday, after flying into a challenge on Gabriel Martinelli 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.
The Brentford man has since revealed that he’s apologised to Martinelli and that the challenge was harder than he’d intended.
“He accepted my apology and shook my hand,” Norgaard said.
“He thought the tackle was maybe harder than I did, but he was fine and [Declan] Rice as well – he said it’s part of football, you try and make these tackles to stop transitions and there was no evil intention in the challenge.
“Looking back at it, maybe it was a bit harder than I wanted it to be, but I would never set out to hurt a player intentionally.
“Sometimes you end up in situations like I did with Jordan Pickford at Everton, where I got a straight red card (which was overturned), but it was never intentional.”
“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 in the immediate aftermath of the match.
“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.”
Martinelli would have been particularly disappointed to pick up an injury in Saturday’s game, given the Champions League quarter-final second leg match against Real Madrid is coming up on Wednesday.
Fortunately, the Brazilian international’s foot was just leaving the ground as Norgaard made contact, so he avoided any serious damage.