Brentford captain Christian Norgaard has apologised to Gabriel Martinelli for a tackle that the Arsenal winger claimed could have broken his leg.
Norgaard caught Martinelli from behind with a challenge in the first half of Saturday’s 1-1 draw at Emirates Stadium.
Martinelli was angered by the tackle, describing it as “nasty” and claiming after the game the challenge could have broken his leg.
Norgaard insists he would never go out to intentionally hurt another player and has said sorry to Martinelli, who accepted the apology.
“He accepted my apology and shook my hand,” said the Brentford skipper.
“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.”
Brentford earned a point at Emirates Stadium after Yoane Wissa cancelled out Thomas Partey’s opener.
The result followed the Bees holding Chelsea to a draw in their previous game and Norgaard believes it shows their progress that the squad wanted more.
“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,” he said.
“We need more points to get above halfway and challenge for other things, but this is a tough place to come. 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.”
