Martin Keown Blasts Gary Neville Over ‘Whack’ Comment on Gabriel Martinelli
Arsenal fans have been getting increasingly fed up with Gary Neville’s constant jibes at the Gunners, and his latest outburst during that recent Premier league match really lit the fuse.
In Arsenal’s tense as heck 0-0 draw against Liverpool at the Emirates on January 8, 2026, a late kerfuffle involving Gabriel Martinelli and Liverpool defender Conor Bradley grabbed all the headlines. Neville, commentating for Sky Sports at the time, hit out at Martinelli’s actions – calling them ” a complete and utter mess” and acting like it was little short of a miracle that Liverpool players didn’t jump in and have a go at him, even suggesting they’d have been justified in taking a red card for it.
The Incident: What happened with Martinelli and Bradley?
In injury time, Conor Bradley took a tumble and went down clutching his knee in obvious distress – he was later carted off and it turned out he’d suffered a nasty knee injury requiring surgery and was out for the rest of the season.
Martinelli, snapped at the moment and thinking Bradley was just trying to waste time (it had been going on all game so you could see why he’d think that), chucked the ball at him and tried to give him a bit of a nudge to get on with it and the rest of the teams started a right old melee.
Martinelli was quick to put the record straight, messaging Bradley and posting publicly to say he’d had no idea the injury was that serious. Both Mikel Arteta and Arne Slot came out in his defence, pointing to his good character and the fact that the game had been full of stoppages.
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Martin Keown fires back at Neville on TalkSport
Arsenal legend Martin Keown didn’t exactly mince his words when he tackled Neville’s incendiary comments on Talksport.
Keown accused the former Man U defender of just trying to make a mountain out of a molehill:
“Just there to try and make a big deal out of nothing because he was bored, the game was rubbish and he’d got nothing else to go on. He was trying to make that the story of the day”
Keown gave Martinelli’s character big plus points, calling him “one of the most decent guys I’ve met in the game” – he’s a polite and respectful fella. He said the shove was just a misjudgement on Martinelli’s part, that he was getting frustrated with the state of play and the fact that Liverpool players had been going down all over the shop.
Keown pointed out that Martinelli did apologise straight away and that it had all been a bit of a kerfuffle for something that wasn’t really that bad in the grand scheme of things.
Why Arsenal Fans Should Just Tune Out Gary Neville
This isn’t the first time Neville has gotten on the wrong side of Arsenal fans with some pretty snarky comments about the club – he kind of courts controversy whenever he talks about the Gunners – and he usually gets the reaction he’s looking for.
Critics say Neville’s take on things can be a bit one-sided, and he rarely backs down when people prove him wrong – that only adds fuel to the flames of unnecessary drama. Its worth noting Jamie Carragher and Roy Keane have also had something to say about Arsenal from time to time, but Neville seems to be singling them out quite a lot.
For Arsenal fans though, just ignore him would be a good idea, focus on seeing how Mikel Arteta is doing with the team and let the likes of Martinelli’s performances speak for themselves – like that FA Cup hat-trick of his against Portsmouth for example.
The whole thing highlighted how passionate the Premier League can get – but even a defence by some other pundit shows that sometimes you have to look at the context of what was said – because let’s be honest some punditry can say more about the commentator than the player.
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Martin Keown Blasts Gary Neville Over ‘Whack’ Comment on Gabriel Martinelli