Virgil van Dijk issues three-word Gabriel Martinelli blast after Conor Bradley incident

Virgil van Dijk has spoken out on the incident between Gabriel Martinelli and Conor Bradley in Liverpool's 0-0 draw with Arsenal at Emirates Stadium

Virgil van Dijk says that "everyone was unhappy" with Gabriel Martinelli following his altercation with injured Liverpool Conor Bradley.

The Reds captain expressed his frustration after Arsenal star Martinelli sparked controversy by seemingly attempting to pull Bradley off the pitch, despite the young defender suffering a serious injury.

Martinelli has since apologised publicly, reached out to Bradley personally, and claimed he "really didn't understand" the severity of the injury at the time.

The incident occurred when Bradley fell in pain during Liverpool's draw with Arsenal, prompting Martinelli to try and move him off the pitch. This action led to a heated exchange between the two teams.

Van Dijk said: "Everyone was unhappy at that moment. It wasn't a couple of players, but everyone, and rightly so because Conor was on the pitch and to be pushing him off the pitch is not really a good sight."

"It is pretty obvious for you guys to analyse it from clips. For us, it goes pretty quickly. The long ball came, Conor is challenging for it, falls down on the pitch and obviously Martinelli pushes him off the pitch and our players reacted.

"We all came together. And we had no clue what really happened, but it doesn't look great and it doesn't look great on Martinelli either."

"We are focussing on Conor now. He will have medical tests coming up in the next 24 hours and we will have to adapt."

Liverpool secured a hard-earned draw at Arsenal, extending their unbeaten streak to ten matches, and Van Dijk acknowledged that while it wasn't always a beautiful display, they executed an "outstanding" strategy.

He said: "Our thoughts are with Conor, first and foremost. Hopefully it is not the worst, but it doesn't look great. Other than that, our game plan was outstanding in my opinion.

"We let their centre-backs have the ball because we felt like they wouldn't be able to come up with an ID and that is why they didn't create many chances against us.

"It doesn't look great, but you can come out and try to go one v one and take the risk, but we all know a game is 90 minutes and at a certain point we would have the space to play and that is what happened in the second half.

"We were outstanding with the ball. It felt like it could have been more than a point, but I am very proud of the guys against a team that is very much in form.

"No team can run and press for the full 90 minutes like they do in the first 20 to 30 minutes so we had to keep fighting and let them find an idea that they couldn't, and we knew that they would get midfielders between the centre-backs to try and come up with something.

"The guys put a big shift in defensive work and then in the second half in possession we were outstanding and found the right players in between the lines.

"Unfortunately, we couldn't create big chances but with the players we have right now, missing two proper number nines, the guys still did outstanding, and we will take a point."