The Manchester United defender was confronted on the field by a Gunners supporter as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang celebrated scoring from the spot <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Manchester United defender Chris Smalling was shoved by a celebrating Arsenal supporter on the same day that Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish suffered a violent assault at the hands of\u00a0a Birmingham City fan.<\/p>\n
Stunning scenes at St Andrew\u2019s on Sunday saw the Villans midfielder punched from behind by a pitch invader\u00a0during the Second City Derby derby.<\/p>\n
Swift action was taken against the culprit in the West Midlands, with the offender taken into custody by local police and handed an immediate lifetime ban from attending future fixtures.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
And just a\u00a0matter of hours after the events in Birmingham, another supporter was able to make his way onto the field at Emirates Stadium.<\/p>\n
A man branded an \u201cabsolute numpty\u201d by former United defender Gary Neville broke free after seeing Arsenal double their lead over the Red Devils.<\/p>\n
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang converted from the penalty spot to hand the Gunners a 2-0 advantage.<\/p>\n
As he wheeled away towards the corner flag, a fan from the opposite side of the ground raced towards the jubilant Arsenal players.<\/p>\n
He took the opportunity to shove England international Smalling on his way past, with stewards nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n
With two incidents taking place on the same afternoon, concerns have been raised as to the on-field safety of players.<\/p>\n
It has been suggested that more needs to be done in order to prevent those in the stands from gaining access to the pitch.<\/p>\n
That is easier said than done, but the relevant authorities will be expected to take action.<\/p>\n
Following the game, Arsenal released a statement confirming the offending fan had been banned from all Arsenal games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We utterly condemn the\u00a0behaviour\u00a0of the individual who ran onto the pitch and approached Chris Smalling during today’s match,” the statement read.<\/p>\n
“We would like to\u00a0apologise\u00a0to Chris and Manchester\u00a0United,\u00a0and are pleased that he was apprehended and arrested. We will be working closely with the Metropolitan Police in their investigation.<\/p>\n
“The individual will also be banned from Arsenal matches home and away. Our matchday staff\u00a0receive\u00a0ongoing training on managing incidents such as this.”<\/p>\n
Smalling suffered little more than bruised pride against Arsenal, but things could have been worse.<\/p>\n
In the end, he was merely left to reflect on a disappointing 2-0 defeat for United.<\/p>\n
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer\u2019s side had made a trip to north London buoyed by a stunning Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain.<\/p>\n
They were short of their best against the Gunners, though, with Romelu Lukaku unable to replicate his heroics at the Parc des Princes.<\/p>\n
The Belgian striker squandered a number of chances, while the usually reliable David de Gea was surprisingly left wrong-footed by a swerving first-half effort from Granit Xhaka.<\/p>\n
Once Aubameyang had added to that strike, Arsenal were always in complete control.<\/p>\n
Unai Emery\u2019s side have now clambered back above United in the Premier League table and into the top four, with only one point separating them from arch-rivals Tottenham.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Manchester United defender was confronted on the field by a Gunners supporter as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang celebrated scoring from the spot Manchester United defender Chris Smalling was shoved by a celebrating Arsenal supporter on the same day that Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish suffered a violent assault at the hands of\u00a0a Birmingham City fan. Stunning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}