Liverpool’s draw with West Ham on Saturday was the final nail in the Reds title aspirations.
In truth, Liverpool were already virtually certain not to lift the Premier League title in just over two weeks time.
But having given up two points late on to the Hammers, they can now well and truly forget coming out on top of the pile this season.
The man who got that equalising goal was Michail Antonio. Antonio has a good record against Liverpool under Jurgen Klopp and it was not a surprise that he was the man to nod past Alisson Becker.
However, the game was notable for reasons other than the final result. From Mo Salah’s argument with Klopp to referee Anthony Taylor bizarrely stopping Cody Gakpo from scoring, the match was full of incident. And Antonio has now shared what he and his teammates have been discussing in the days since.
Michail Antonio reflects on Liverpool match
Antonio has often been a thorn in the side of Liverpool. Having previously jokingly declared his hatred of supporters of the club, maybe that isn’t a coincidence.
This time though, the 34-year-old was not bothered about rubbing in the fact that he’d levelled the score against the Reds.
Instead, Antonio told the Footballer’s Football Podcast what he’d heard said between Salah and Klopp during their already infamous spat.
“So basically, this is not inside information, nobody’s told me anything,” the striker prefaced. “But what I have heard – this is what the boys have been talking about on the training ground – as players come on Klopp usually gives them a big hug, but when Mo came on he walked in a different direction and did his shinpads and stuff.
“Klopp put his hand out to him and his hand was there for a bit and he just slapped his hand.
“Klopp didn’t like that and was like ‘do you want to sit back down’, basically saying do you want to go on? And nobody has told me what Mo said back.”
How have Liverpool reacted to the spat
It’s no surprise that Salah and Klopp having a very public falling out has dominated talk since Saturday’s game.
You can bet that it will be the first question Jurgen is asked during his pre-Tottenham Hotspur press conference on Friday as well.
For his part, Salah rather aggravated things immediately after the game at the weekend. He only said a few words, but they were unnecessary and inflammatory. The story rumbled on.
From Liverpool’s point of view though, they’re not said to be overly worried about what went transpired at the London Stadium.
Since the bust-up happened, Salah has been claimed to be likely to stay at Liverpool beyond the summer. As we know, Klopp will not. We’ll see what happens in these final two weeks but for the sake of everyone it’s best just to let sleeping dogs lie.