What embarrassed Michail Antonio refused to do after Liverpool beat West Ham
If only for his own sake, it's just as well Michail Antonio is unable to place any bets.
The West Ham United striker raised a fair few eyebrows in the build-up to his latest visit to Anfield with a bold, bombastic claim about not only winning but also finishing above Liverpool in this season's Premier League.
"You know what, I think we are going to finish higher than Liverpool this season," suggested Antonio earlier this week on his podcast with Newcastle United's Callum Wilson. "I'm putting it out there."
While such boasts are not necessarily to be discouraged in the era of media-trained blandness, the comments did present an illustration of how Jurgen Klopp's team are being more widely overlooked now after the difficulties of last term; a campaign that, for all its obvious, deep-rooted problems, still took a top-four push until the final week back in May.
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Another 3-1 victory for Klopp's team - their third in eight days - was enough to ensure that Antonio's insistence that his team would take maximum points at Anfield fell hopelessly flat.
Now up to second in the Premier League - and with the manager once more back in full fist-pumping motion in front of the Kop after the final whistle - it seems normal service is slowly resuming for the Reds.
For the fourth game in a row, a free-scoring Liverpool rattled in three past the opposition as Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota added to their own respective tallies.
Throw the electric bursts of Luis Diaz and the smooth motoring of Cody Gakpo into the equation and Liverpool have the sort of firepower that will be
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