Ljungberg slams 'disrespectful' Arsenal star after Champions League win over Sporting

Freddie Ljungberg has hit out at Arsenal defender Gabriel Magalhaes over his “disrespectful” goal celebration in a 5-1 win over Sporting CP on Tuesday night.

The Gunners ran out comfortable winners against Sporting – who were playing their first Champions League match after Ruben Amorim’s departure to Manchester United – with Mikel Arteta’s side delivering an impressive performance in Europe.

Gabriel Martinelli, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Magalhaes put Arsenal 3-0 up before the interval before Sporting pulled a goal back through Goncalo Inacio shortly after half-time.

But Sporting could not halt Arsenal’s dominance as a Bukayo Saka penalty put them further ahead before Leandro Trossard’s 82nd minute strike finished off the scoring.

Gabriel and William Saliba were on top form to stop the threat of Gyokeres for Sporting with the Sweden international linked to a number of Premier League clubs.

And Gabriel rubbed salt in the wound for Gyokeres with the Arsenal defender celebrating his goal by copying the Swede’s celebration by locking his fingers in front of his face.

Arsenal legend Ljungberg was not impressed by what he saw from Gabriel and thought his decision to mimic Gyokeres’ celebration was “disrespectful”.

Ljungberg said during his analysis for Viaplay: “I’m not a fan of it. Of course, he must have had a lot of talk about playing against Gyokeres and whether he would be able to do it. Then his point in showing that he can handle it is quite simple.

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“But I think it’s a bit disrespectful. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I think someone else has that target gesture, leave it alone. I don’t like to see it.”

Fellow pundit in the Viaplay studio, Sweden head coach Lars Lagerback, added: “You can always discuss ethics and morality but I don’t think it’s particularly serious. But you can only take a little.

“There is probably some irony behind it, one hopes, and not just rudeness.”

Reacting to the Arsenal defender copying his celebration, Gyokeres told reporters: “I didn’t know he did that, but it’s fun he likes my celebration.

“He’s welcome to steal it if he can’t create his own celebration.”

Speaking about Sporting’s overall performance against Arsenal, Gyokeres added: “We were not good enough today.

“We didn’t play good enough football when we had the ball. We start like against Manchester City and concede an early goal and it’s not always that easy to turn a game around… it was a tough day.”

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