FA should have got involved after Liverpool incident – I wouldn’t shake Gabriel Martinelli’s hand

John Aldridge reacts to Liverpool’s FA Cup win over Barnsley and Dominik Szoboszlai’s performance in the first half of his weekly ECHO column

I thought it was disgusting, what we saw from Gabriel Martinelli last week. Conor Bradley is clearly hurt. To react like he did to him was not a good look at all.

He thinks it’s time-wasting but we don’t really time-waste. We maybe should do it more. Think of those games where we’ve conceded in the last minute. But we don’t. We’re a very fair team.

Arsenal and Man City do it, under Pep Guardiola and Mikel Arteta, and they do it well too. It’s quite ironic they’ve picked on Liverpool. It’s really not how we do things, rightly or wrongly. But that’s no excuse for how he reacted to him, trying to shove him off the pitch and dropping the ball on him. He could have made his injury worse!

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And now Conor’s out for the season, not that Martinelli would have known that at the time.

In our day, no-one would have shaken his hand after the game. And in the tunnel he would have got one from us!

But that was our day, as I’ve said many times before, I’m a dinosaur. But we would have had words with him in the tunnel, that’s for sure.

The FA should have got involved. I don’t know what they can do, but they should have looked at it. You don’t do, what he did.

Arsenal fans might think nothing of it but what if it was on the other foot? I don’t think they’d be acting the same then!

We need a new centre-back

Injuries have not been kind to Conor, but this setback is particularly cruel. You only hope, for his sake, he can be back for the World Cup if Northern Ireland qualify.

When he’s back, you hope he can catch a break. He’s had a few lay-offs now. You want to see him put these injuries behind him and have a good go at nailing down a starting place once and for all.

Liverpool will have to make do without him for now though. And it does leave us short defensively.

We need to wrap up our right-backs and centre-backs in cotton wool. Frimpong has done his hamstring a couple of times this season and we all know about Ibrahima Konate’s injury past.

And there’s Joe Gomez too. He is vital if he can stay fit because he can play anywhere. Right-back, centre-back, left-back – even holding midfield. But he is a bit injury-prone.

We need to keep him free from injury because we’re going to need him, to help keep everyone else fit and firing.

We don’t actually need a new right-back. Conor will come back stronger and there’s still Joe, Jeremie Frimpong and even Dominik Szoboszlai.

But we do need a new centre-back. Especially if Joe or Konate got injured.

I don’t know what’s happening with Marc Guehi but obviously they tried to sign him in the summer. They left it until the last-minute and missed out. Liverpool need to learn from that mistake.

We spent over £400m in the summer which is a fair bit of money, so maybe the money isn’t there.

But if Guehi is available and we can afford him, we have to go and get him now. He’s up there with the best in the Premier League.

Okay, he’s no Franz Beckenbauer. But he would improve us. If we need him, which I think we do, go and get him.

Don’t leave it to the last minute and let Man City get him. And we need someone to give Virgil van Dik a rest too. If a deal can be done this month, they have to do it.

Alonso out but Slot stays – for now

Xabi Alonso’s departure from Real Madrid has obviously caught the attention. While he could be an option as Liverpool manager in the future, I don’t see Arne Slot leaving now.

Arne could win the Champions League, he could win the FA Cup. He’s trying to have us qualify for the Champions League at the very least. Manage that and we’d be alright, though obviously you want a trophy too.

If something happens down the line and we’re after a new manager, maybe Xabi could come in. But at this moment in time, it’s not one to think about.

It’s the biggest club in the planet, Real Madrid. Liverpool are second. I’ve played in Spain and I know how big they are.

If they aren’t top of the tree, they move on no matter how much it costs. It’s a harsh lesson for Alonso, but it doesn’t make him a bad manager. Far from it.

I expect Liverpool to stick with Slot. But given what Alonso achieved with Leverkusen, and his own links with us, I think we’ll all be keeping an eye on him and see what happens next in his managerial career.