Garth Crooks believes Emerson Royal was simply unable to deal with Gabriel Martinelli in Saturday’s North London Derby, which resulted in the Brazilian receiving a red card for a tackle on the Arsenal winger.
According to the BBC Sport pundit, Royal struggled all game against his Brazilian counterpart Martinelli who troubled him for most of the game, with the Tottenham defender eventually being sent off for a nasty challenge on the 21-year-old.
Martinelli was one of Arsenal’s best players against Tottenham, assisting Granit Xhaka’s second-half goal that sealed the three points for the Gunners.
Arsenal made quite a statement by taking their north London rivals to the cleaners in such convincing fashion. And for Crooks, Emerson’s dismissal was a game-changing moment, with the pundit claiming that the defender simply couldn’t deal with Martinelli.
Crooks had this to say about Martinelli’s performance and Emerson’s red card (via BBC Sport):
“What was equally disturbing was Conte’s lack of ability to see that Emerson Royal was totally incapable of dealing with the threat of Gabriel Martinelli and his sending-off ultimately cost Spurs the match.”
The emphatic derby win meant that Arsenal retained their lead at the top of the Premier League table, while Antonio Conte’s side suffered their first domestic defeat of the season.
What an absolute joke of a comment you must be blind
martinelli falls and dives about continuously every time he is tackled taylor fell for it !!! never a red card !! if you see tackle from other view he almost misses him completely
Time to move Hugo on. Sick of watching this Chump.
We all know Royal is vulnerable! It’s ridiculous to blame him when he gets picked despite his limitations.
And it doesn’t make any difference what system we play if we always sit so deep that we are constantly in danger of being overrun.
We’re really difficult to watch with enthusiasm.
Emerson was stupid and many have said that he deserved the red card. After all, what on earth was he thinking tackling a player going away from goal and posing no threat? Studs high and dangerous. Crooks fancies himself as a bit of a wordsmith but is this assessment balanced or just a little lazy or plain misleading? On another day, perhaps with a different referee we might have seen a yellow card. If that had been the case, we might have said he was lucky to get away with that. By the same token we might or could be saying he was unlucky to get a straight red. Was Emerson unable to deal with Martinelli or was he just having a bit of a torrid time? Martinelli is a tricky customer and it’s a tough ask for any WB to keep him subdued all the time, to win every tackle, to deny him every passing opportunity. Emerson is not the first or only player to struggle against Martinelli and neither will he be the last. Was the Emerson error worse than the Lloris howler which gifted the second goal. I think not which is why I think Garth has focussed on the wrong culprit on this occasion.
He is doing that now..
I reckon he’ll experiment more with 3-5-2. Not sure why he held off on that for so long. But then we’ll finally have a plan A (3-4-3) and a plan B (3-5-2)
This is another fine example where you question Conte’s tactical awareness.He certainly doesn’t appear to notice how our MF gets overrun and outnumbered in every game and how ineffectual our WB s are for the system he chooses to employ.
Without significant funds at his disposal,is he like other”world class”coaches that seem to fail,particularly at Spurs.These guys are happy to take all the plaudits when things are going their way,but once in a while why don’t they take a job where they know there are no funds available and see how they get on.It would really separate the great from the also rans.