'Everyone was unhappy' - Virgil van Dijk defends Liverpool players over Gabriel Martinelli treatment after Arsenal star disrespected injured Conor Bradley

Table-topping Arsenal were of the opinion that Northern Ireland international full-back Bradley was looking to waste time when tumbling by the touchline late on. He did, however, appear to be in some distress after seeing his knee buckle while making a clearance.

Martinelli was first on the scene and dropped the ball on Bradley before then attempting to remove him from the pitch. Liverpool stars quickly waded in, with Ibrahima Konate picking up a booking, while the antics of Arsenal’s Brazilian winger were branded a “disgrace” by Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville.

Martinelli has since apologised for his behaviour, with Bradley suffering a serious enough injury that he was forced to leave north London in a knee brace, but Liverpool maintain that they did nothing wrong.

Van Dijk told reporters afterwards: "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 focusing on Conor now. He will have medical tests coming up in the next 24 hours and we will have to adapt."

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Van Dijk was pleased with the contribution that Bradley made to the collective cause before being forced from the field, with Liverpool picking up a 0-0 draw against Arsenal that has extended their unbeaten run to 10 matches.

Arne Slot’s side were a little toothless on the night, as they failed to fire in a shot on target, but Van Dijk 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."

Big-money strikers Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike are currently ruled out of Liverpool’s plans through injury. Others are being asked to try and provide an attacking spark - with Mohamed Salah another absentee while on Africa Cup of Nations duty - and Slot’s men will be back in action on Monday when facing League One outfit Barnsley in the FA Cup third round.