Neal Maupay “Arsenal got what they deserved” after injuring Leno

Neal Maupay “Arsenal got what they deserved” after injuring Leno

Neal Maupay, the 23-year-old Brighton‘s player that injured Arsenal‘s goalkeeper during their encounter on Saturday said Arsenal got what they deserved.

Maupay was instrumental in ensuring that Brighton defeated Arsenal home and away this season. The relegation-threatened team beat Arsenal in Emirate Stadium 1-2 in December and did the same thing to the team in Amex Stadium on Saturday.

Maupay said after the match that some Arsenal players need to learn how to be humble. He revealed that when the Gunners were leading 1-0 courtesy of Nicolas Pepe‘s 68-minute stunner, Arsenal players were “talking a lot” until the equaliser came in the 75th minute and then the winner in the last seconds of the additional minute.

Brighton didn’t only defeat Arsenal with Maupay’s 95th-minute goal, Mikel Arteta left the Amex Stadium with his first-choice goalkeeper for the match, Bernd Leno, having a twisted knee.

The replay of what led to Leno’s twisted knee showed that Neal Maupay collided with Bernd Leno in Arsenal box 18 towards the 40th minute of the first half. The knee hurt so bad that the goalkeeper couldn’t continue the match. He was stretched off in the 40th minute.

As Leno was being stretched off the pitch, he took some seconds to exchange words with Maupay with the belief that the Brighton‘s player decided to infringe injury on him in line with the game plan of the 15th placed team.

However, Maupay said after the match that he didn’t plan to infringe injury on the goalkeeper and he had to meet with the coach of the side, Mikel Arteta, to apologise because he knew how it feels to be injured as he had suffered the same fate in his career.

He said: “I mean not really (I didn’t mean to cause an injury). At half-time, I went to their manager Mikel Arteta to apologise because I have never meant to injure their goalkeeper. I just went to get the ball, maybe he landed and just twisted his knee. I apologised to their team and him.

“I’ve been through a bad injury so I know it’s hard but I never meant to hurt him. But some Arsenal players need to learn humility some times because they’ve been talking a lot in the second half when they were 1-0 up and they got what they deserved.

“Honestly until the keeper gets the ball you never know what could happen. I just went to get the ball really. I think it was shoulder to shoulder and when he landed he twisted his knee. You know this is football and there is contact and I never meant to hurt him. I apologise to him again and wish him a speedy recovery.”
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