‘Cracks me up’ – Will Still makes candid admission about ‘incredibly annoying’ Liverpool player | OneFootball

Will Still described one Liverpool player as a ‘funny lad’ and an ‘incredibly annoying’ opponent after the Reds narrowly saw off his Southampton side at Anfield on Tuesday night.

The Saints belied their position of 19th in the Championship by coming within five minutes of taking the Premier League leaders to penalties in their Carabao Cup third round clash, only for Hugo Ekitike to consign the visitors to defeat.

The home fans’ glee over the late winner was rapidly cut short as the striker was shown a second yellow card for removing his shirt in celebrating the goal, with Chris Sutton blasting the 23-year-old’s act of ‘sheer stupidity‘.

Will Still: Ekitike ‘cracks me up’

Still was previously on the Reims coaching staff when Ekitike played for the French club earlier in his career, and the Southampton manager revealed a pre-match promise made to him by the Liverpool star.

The 32-year-old said (via The Athletic): “Hugo cracks me up; he’s a funny lad. We caught up before the game, and he said he’d come on and score, give me a shirt and bugger off, which is exactly what he’s done!

“Fair play to him. We [Reims] sold him to PSG for £50m, so we knew he’d got a bit about him and he’d scored a lot of goals for us as well. He’s a constant threat, and he’s incredibly annoying to play against.”

(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Ekitike managed to annoy Liverpool fans and players last night!

Ekitike cracked up teammates and Liverpool fans on Tuesday night as well, but in a different manner of speaking to what Still meant!

Jeremie Frimpong couldn’t hide his annoyance at the 23-year-old when the shirt came off, and to put it mildly, Slot didn’t spare the striker in his post-match media duties.

The red card represents the first real low of an otherwise magnificent start to the Frenchman’s time at Anfield, with the ex-Eintracht Frankfurt star already netting five goals in eight matches for the Reds, a rich vein of form which has enabled the head coach to gently bed in Alexander Isak.

We’re sure that Ekitike will learn from his silliness last night and, once he’s served his suspension on Saturday, quickly get back to maintaining his excellent goalscoring form.

As for Still, he won’t have to worry about facing Liverpool’s number 22 for the rest of the season unless the Reds and Southampton are paired in the FA Cup from January onwards.