The truth over Sergio Conceicao comments as Mikel Arteta celebrates Arsenal victory
Club sources have strongly denied that Mikel Arteta insulted Sergio Conceicao's family in the aftermath of Arsenal's Champions League round of 16 second leg victory over Porto.
The Gunners were able to overturn the first leg deficit courtesy of Leandro Trossard's first half goal. However, it took penalties for them eventually see off their Portuguese opponents.
The contest between the two sides was dogged by a tetchy atmosphere, with 74 fouls being committed across the course of the two games. Conceicao himself was heavily involved in this. After his side's 1-0 win in the first leg at Estadio do Dragao, the Portuguese manager claimed that «they wanted to play, we wanted to win». This prickly attitude continued into the second leg as the 49-year-old was involved in a touchline altercation with Kai Havertz.
Even after Arsenal had claimed victory in a penalty shootout courtesy of two David Raya saves, the bad blood between the two sides continued, with Conceicao and Arteta exchanging heated words after the full time whistle. Arteta initially declined to comment on this in his post-match press conference, but Conceicao later when on to claim that the Arsenal manager's comments in the altercation had related to his family.
«During the game and towards the bench he, in Spanish, I don’t know if this is to do with Spanish managers, he insulted my family,» the Porto manager said. «And then at the end, I said attention, who he insults is not between us, he should focus on training his team because they have a lot of individual qualities to do that.»
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