“Listen I loved it”, “Gabriel loves it as well!” - Ex-Manchester City defender on scuffle between Erling Haaland and Arsenal star

Former Manchester City defender Nedum Onuoha has stated that he loved Erling Haaland throwing the ball at Arsenal centre-back Gabriel after the late equalizer when the two sides met at the weekend (September 22). He believes that the Gunners' defender would have also liked it as he enjoys childish fights.

Speaking on ESPN FC, Onuoha stated that he found it funny how Haaland was behaving in the match against Arsenal, saying:

“Listen I loved it. Haaland shows this sort of like immature childish side of him when it comes down to footballing moments. I tell you what though, for all the games that have been played between him and those two centre-backs, I bet there’s been some talking, not least Gabriel. Gabriel loves it as well! You just don’t see it as much."

“Haaland doing that, I personally find it quite funny. In reality, anyone that’s outraged, even if it’s Gabriel, well the solution is don’t let City score. You win the game, you say whatever you want. But when those people have their moments, they can do stuff like that,” he added.

Ian Wright was furious with Haaland after the striker threw the ball at Gabriel. In a video on Instagram, the Arsenal legend called it a 'coward's move' and said:

"The one thing that boiled me up properly was Haaland's coward's move. Throwing the ball at Gabi's head when he's not looking. When Gabi's back turned to him. Real coward's move. Gabi would look him in the eye, you know. That's what bothered me more than anything else. I thought you [Haaland] were bigger than that."

Manchester City remained on top of the Premier League table after the draw while Arsenal moved to fourth place, a spot about Chelsea.

Arsenal star Gabriel responds to Erling Haaland

Gabriel admitted that he had no clue about the ball being thrown at him at Erling Haaland. He stated that the behavior was normal as they had just scored to take a point from the match. The Arsenal defender told TNT Sports Brazil:

"I don’t even remember this. It’s normal, they were happy after scoring in the last minute. They were playing at home, so their duty was to win the match, but our team did really well to resist. It’s a battle, a war, so it’s normal to have provocative acts in football, it’s part of the game. Now this is over and we are waiting for them at our ground.”

VAR reportedly checked the incident and deemed it was not worthy of looking into. The FA have also decided not to hand out any retrospective punishment to Haaland.