Liverpool fear Conor Bradley suffered a serious injury against Arsenal, as Arne Slot offered his reaction to Gabriel Martinelli's confrontation with the defender.
The full-back went down in the closing stages of the drab goalless draw on the touchline holding his knee.
Martinelli dropped a ball on Bradley as he lay on the ground and then attempted to drag him off the bench to try and resume the match.
Gary Neville said it was "absolutely disgraceful" from Martinelli and questioned why the Liverpool players did not "whack him" in response.
However, Slot provided a more measured response when asked after the match for his opinion on the incident.
"I don’t know Gabriel Martinelli but he comes across as a nice guy," Slot said.
"The problem for him is that there is so much time-wasting and players pretending they are injured, then sometimes you get annoyed and think that players are time-wasting.
"I am 100% sure if he knew what the injury might be, he would never do that. It doesn’t look great if Conor has the injury which we fear he might have."
Arteta insisted there was no malice in Martinelli's actions and that he was unaware of the severity of Bradley's injury.
"Knowing Gabi, if anybody knows Gabi, he's an incredible, lovely guy, and probably he didn't realise what happened," Arteta said.
"I hope that Conor as well. I will have a word with him now to understand that, but probably he didn't recognise what happened."
