Brentford star issues apology to Arsenal’s Martinelli for ‘leg breaking’ tackle

The Brentford captain drew the ire of Mikel Arteta and Gabriel Martinelli himself for his lunging challenge on the Brazilian winger at the Emirates on Saturday

Christian Norgaard apologised to Gabriel Martinelli for his horror tackle – and then tipped Arsenal to survive the “magic” cauldron of Madrid. Gunners manager Mikel Arteta claimed the Brentford skipper should have been sent off for scything down Martinelli, while the Brazilian forward complained the late, lunging challenge could have broken his leg.

Norgaard appeared to be making little headway in his attempt to make amends with Martinelli at half-time but later revealed: “He accepted my apology and shook my hand.

“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.”

READ MORE: Arsenal star will look to prove Florentino Perez right in Real Madrid second legREAD MORE: Arsenal star makes anger with opponent clear as he blasts: ‘He could’ve broke my leg’

Norgaard believes Arsenal will defend their three-goal advantage in the Champions League quarter-final second leg on Wednesday – but warned they would need to navigate a path through Real Madrid ’s mystical powers in the Bernabeu.

He said: “I think Arsenal will finish the job. I watched the first leg and they were brilliant.

“Even though the Bernabeu is a magical place, especially for the home side, but they will need more than magic to go through this time.”

Brentford remain the Premier League ’s transit lounge club – too good to go down, but not seriously threatening to reach Europe.

Norgaard admitted: “We’ve never won here and it’s a funny feeling – we’ve taken two points off Chelsea and Arsenal in our last two games and we are neither dancing around to music in the dressing room nor disappointed.

“The biggest club in the world came here the other night and got nothing, so to take a point when they (Arsenal) still had something to play for is a very good result.”

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