{"id":330928,"date":"2026-05-07T22:30:34","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=330928"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:00:34","slug":"espn-presenter-makes-statement-after-claim-he-desired-to-punch-mikel-arteta-within-the-face-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/07\/espn-presenter-makes-statement-after-claim-he-desired-to-punch-mikel-arteta-within-the-face-football\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN presenter makes statement after claim he desired to &#8216;punch Mikel Arteta within the face&#8217; | Football"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t\t<\/div><figcaption>Dan Thomas took a dim view of Mikel Arteta\u2019s touchline antics against Atletico Madrid (Picture: ESPN FC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>ESPN FC presenter Dan Thomas has issued a groveling apology after claiming Mikel Arteta\u2019s touchline antics had him wanting to punch the Arsenal manager within the face. <\/p>\n<p>The Gunners booked their place within the Champions League final later this month after a narrow win against Atletico Madrid on Tuesday night because of Bukayo Saka\u2019s goal on the stroke of half-time. <\/p>\n<p>Relatively than rejoice a tremendous and historic achievement, Thomas opted as a substitute to aim his ire at Arteta who was an animated figure throughout andconstantly left his technical area to bark instructions at his players. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018At what stage, because the opposition coach, do you ought to punch Arteta within the face? How much does that annoy you?\u2019 Thomas said.<\/p>\n<p>Former Chelsea midfielder Craig Burley looked slight greatly surprised by the comments made by the show\u2019s host and replied: Hold on, the 2 of them are as bad as one another.\u201d But Thomas replied: \u2018I believed, today, Arteta out-Simeoned, Simeone. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018The way in which he was running around at the top. It\u2019s got to be frustrating, hasn\u2019t it, as an opposition coach?\u2019<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<p>\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dan Thomas clarifies comments about Mikel Arteta after UCL Semifinal | ESPN FC\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LQBXsXP7_wY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Fellow panelist Stewart Robson, who made 150 top flight appearances for Arsenal but is a notorious critic of his former club, appeared to agree with Thomas\u2019 sentiments.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u2018What&#8217;s a coach on the side of the pitch alleged to do? He\u2019s meant to educate the sport, he\u2019s meant to provide instructions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018All Arteta does, I believe he\u2019s doing it for himself: \u2018Take a look at me, I\u2019m great, I run this club, I do that, I do this\u2026 It\u2019s just absolutely pathetic.\u2019 <\/p>\n<p>Robson then claimed that he would have deliberately gone after Arteta if he was on the pitch, adding: \u2018If I used to be running down the side, I\u2019d be certain I actually topped him. I\u2019d tackle the ball and tackle him at the identical time.\u2019<\/p>\n<figure class=\"img-container shareable-item wp-caption\">\n<div class=\"img-wrap\">\n\t\t<img width=\"594\" height=\"396\" src=\"https:\/\/metro.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GettyImages-2274801947.jpg?quality=90&#038;strip=all&#038;w=594\" class=\"article-image wp-image-28274746\" alt=\"Arsenal FC v Atletico de Madrid - UEFA Champions League 2025\/26 Semi Final Second Leg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\">\t<\/div><figcaption>Mikel Arteta celebrated Arsenal\u2019s win over Atletico Madrid (Picture: Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Thomas subsequently faced an enormous online backlash from Arsenal fans which forced him into making an apology on last night\u2019s show which followed PSG\u2019s win over Bayern Munich.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u2018I just need to make reference to something I said yesterday, an off-hand comment that landed literally. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018Obviously, it was not intended to land that way. I\u2019ve considered it today and I could have phrased it in such a greater way. <\/p>\n<p>\u2018So, going forward I will certainly try to not say anything silly.\u2019<\/p>\n<section id=\"share-buttons-bottom\" class=\"share-buttons share-buttons-bottom\"><a class=\"metro-button share-bar-comments\" data-vars-position=\"bottom\" href=\"#metro-comments-container\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Comment now<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-comment\" href=\"#social-comment\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-comments__label\">Comments<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span><svg><title>Add Metro as a Preferred Source on Google<\/title>\n<use xlink:href=\"#social-preferred-source\" href=\"#social-preferred-source\"><\/use><\/svg><\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<span class=\"share-bar-preferred-source__label\">Add as preferred source<\/span><br \/>\n\t\t\t<\/section>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dan Thomas took a dim view of Mikel Arteta\u2019s touchline antics against Atletico Madrid (Picture: ESPN FC) ESPN FC presenter Dan Thomas has issued a groveling apology after claiming Mikel Arteta\u2019s touchline antics had him wanting to punch the Arsenal manager within the face. The Gunners booked their place within the Champions League final later [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20686],"tags":[2604,6146,13023,3054,5479,2603,26699,4872,5400,831],"class_list":["post-330928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football","tag-arteta","tag-claim","tag-espn","tag-face","tag-football","tag-mikel","tag-presenter","tag-punch","tag-statement","tag-wanted"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":330931,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330928\/revisions\/330931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}