Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta praised the mentality of Gabriel Martinelli after he hit the headlines for the right reasons by scoring a hat-trick in a 4-1 FA Cup third-round win at Championship strugglers Portsmouth on Sunday.

Martinelli was widely criticised for throwing the ball at injured Liverpool defender Conor Bradley and then attempting to push him off the pitch during Thursday’s goalless draw at the Emirates Stadium.

The Brazilian forward struck either side of Noni Madueke’s penalty miss to put the Gunners in control at rain-soaked Fratton Park after Andre Dozzell’s own goal cancelled out a shock third-minute opener from Pompey captain Colby Bishop. Martinelli, who also missed an open goal at 2-1, completed his treble in the 72nd minute, having received a hostile reception from the raucous home support.

“That’s personality, come in and talk on the pitch,” said Arteta.

“To play for a big club, you need a big personality because it can be that (being at the centre of a controversial incident), it can be an action that you miss, it can be something that costs you a game, and three days later, there is a game, so you need to lift yourself up and make it count. Today he scored three goals, tomorrow he’s going to train a hundred miles an hour, for sure. He’s not going to change that, that’s Gabi,” he added.

“It’s part of football and then it’s how you take it. But he knew inside the reason why he did what he did,” he said.

Earlier on Sunday, it was announced Liverpool right-back Bradley was set to undergo knee surgery, which will rule him out of the rest of the season.

Martinelli apologised to the Northern Ireland international following the high-profile flashpoint, having not initially realised the severity of the injury.

Arsenal midfielder Mikel Merino said Martinelli is a great guy. “We are really happy for him, he’s a great guy. Everyone who knows him knows he’s a really kind kid. He’s always smiling, he’s always kind with everyone. We are very pleased that he’s performing this well. Sometimes when you’re on the pitch, you don’t have all the information and you can react in a certain way but obviously everyone knows how good of a kid he is and he never tries to make someone feel bad,” he said.

“It’s just a small mistake and he said sorry, and the matter ends there,” he added. Premier League leaders Arsenal began four successive away games in four different competitions by reaching round four of the cup for the first time in three seasons after Arteta made 10 changes for the visit to Hampshire.

“When we make that many changes, there is an element of cohesion that is not going to be as perfect as we want,” said Arteta, who brought on injury-plagued forward Kai Havertz as a substitute for his first appearance since the opening weekend of the season.

“We started the game exactly how we didn’t want to: giving them momentum and an early goal and hope. The more we started to do the simple things right and be a little bit more dominant, the quality took over and the margins were bigger,” he explained. -Nampa/AFP