Arteta axed "embarrassing" Arsenal star after shameless brag to Brighton rival
Arsenal vs Brighton has thrown up some memorable clashes down the years and more often than not, it is the Seagulls that have come away happier.
Brighton make the trip to the Emirates on Sunday afternoon hoping to replicate their 3-0 win on the same ground at the back end of last season. However, it is not just in the red half of north London where they've had joy against the Gunners, they've had some big wins at the Amex as well.
One that stands out as particularly painful from an Arsenal perspective was their second game of 'Project Restart' back in 2020, marking the return of Premier League football after it was suspended for more than three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Gunners made the journey down to the south coast aiming to bounce back from a dismal defeat by Manchester City the game prior. Things started to go down hill at the end of the first half, when Neal Maupay injured Arsenal goalkeeper Bernd Leno that saw him stretchered off.
In the 68th minute, Nicolas Pepe did fire Arsenal in front, but Lewis Dunk equalised less than 10 minutes later. For the visitors, there was far worse still to come. Maupay, already a villain in Gunners eyes for injuring Leno, popped up with a 95th minute winner to snatch all three points.
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Just moments later, the full-time whistle was blown and Maupay was the subject of attention from a number of angry Arsenal players. None more furious than Matteo Guendouzi, who grabbed the striker by the throat before forcing him to the turf.
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Matteo Guendouzi throttled Neal Maupay (BT Sport)That was not the end of things, with Guendouzi soon marching right back over to Maupay after he'd got up to brag about being on more money than the then-Brighton striker. The Frenchman was dubbed "embarrassing" by talkSPORT regular Ally McCoist and it soon turned out that Maupay was actually on around £10,000 more per-week than the midfielder anyway.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta is all for his players showing a bit of fight, but it is believed that he did not take kindly to Guendouzi's shameless remarks towards Maupay at full-time. The Spaniard soon excluded the young midfielder from Gunners training, before loan spells at Hertha BSC and Marseille soon followed.
In the summer of 2022, Guendouzi left Arsenal and put pen to paper on a permanent deal with Marseille, where he remains to date. It just so happened that the now infamous game away at Brighton was his last in an Arsenal shirt, with Arteta not taking kindly to such a temper tantrum.
Though both Guendouzi and Maupay have since long left the clubs involved, Members of the current Arsenal crop should take note - steer clear of such conduct when the Seagulls roll into town on Sunday, or risk Arteta's wrath.
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