Gary Lineker was left amused by Darwin Nunez and Ibrahima Konate’s unique way of celebrating Liverpool’s first goal in their FA Cup third round victory over Arsenal. The Reds left it late to pull off a smash-and-grab at the Emirates Stadium, with an own goal from Jakub Kiwior and a second courtesy of Luis Diaz seeing the visitors claim the spoils.
Arsenal dominated proceedings in the first half but missed a number of golden chances and were punished by Liverpool after the break. Jurgen Klopp’s side grew into the game as it went on and got their reward with 10 minutes remaining when Kiwior turned the ball into his own net from a Liverpool corner.
A number of Liverpool players ran over to the away end to celebrate in front of their fans, with one or two supporters making their way onto the pitch and joining in. One unlucky fan ended up on the receiving end of a few hard slaps from Nunez, who jumped on top of the huddle before getting carried away and repeatedly slapping the top of the man’s head.
Konate was the next player to steam in, with the Frenchman pulling off the fan’s hat before throwing it back into the away end. The bizarre scenes prompted a response from Lineker, who shared a clip of the incident on social media alongside three cry-laughing emojis.
Liverpool had another goal to celebrate before the final whistle, with Diaz finding the back of the net in stoppage time to wrap up the result and send Arsenal crashing out of the FA Cup. Konate was full of praise for his team-mates in his post-match interview, telling BBC Sport: “Yes, I am really happy but I think the man of the match was all of the team.
“I am very happy. We go through to the next round. Yes, of course [I am happy]. It’s hard to play a lot of games but we love it. We did it two years ago, we won two cups. I hope this season is different [win more]. Fingers crossed.”
Liverpool boss Klopp was equally delighted with his team’s performance, adding: “I’m super proud. It’s a super difficult draw, maybe the most difficult we could have got. With all the things we had to consider coming here, Arsenal lined up slightly different, that was smart.
“We changed a bit at half-time. We were really in the game in the second half. We scored the goals and brought the kids on. We fought for 95 minutes. We have a winter break now. It was obvious there would be changes, today the boys bought into it and we could make them. Not too many. In the end we came through.”
