Ranieri: I wanted to kill my striker
FULHAM manager Claudio Ranieri said he wanted “to kill” his striker Aboubakar Kamara, whom he accused of disrespecting the club by insisting on taking a penalty against the Italian’s orders.
Kamara had embarrassed himself by snatching the ball to take – and miss – a penalty that should have gone to Aleksandar Mitrovic.
Serb Mitrovic scored a stoppage-time winner, but Ranieri stormed: “I said to Aboubakar Kamara to leave the ball to Aleksandar Mitrovic, he is the man who shoots the penalties.
“It is unbelievable, he did not respect me, the club, the team and crowd. I spoke with him, it is not right. I wanted to kill him. That is normal when one man takes a ball, only because he scored the last.”
But the embarrassment for Huddersfield is almost greater, with the heroics of last season long forgotten.
The rock-bottom Terriers are hitting new lows every week. They became only the second
Fulham 1 Hudd’field 0 Hector Nunns
team, with Leicester in 2001, to lose seven Premier League matches in a single month.
They also matched their 1955 club record of seven successive losses.
“Obviously, it’s a low point for us right now,” said boss David Wagner.
“Not only because we’ve lost seven in a row, but how we lost it – we struggled a lot.”
Braziliant Roberto Firmino celebrated a hat-trick, Sadio Mane scored the third and Mo Salah – who else? – netted from the spot to leave Arsenal winless in their last six Premier League games at Anfield.
Gunners boss Unai Emery looked in dreamland when Ainsley Maitland-Niles stroked in the opener, giving hand-shakes all round to his bench as the stadium was plunged into an eerie silence. But the protests to stride up and hammer the spot kick down the middle and off keeper Bernd
Leno’s body into the net.
Poor old Arsenal didn’t know what had hit them. They were completely overwhelmed by the fury of Liverpool’s response to that early opener.
After the break Firmino thought he had banged in his hat-trick with a fierce drive which Leno parried away.
The Brazilian did blow a love heart to the faithful, though, in the 64th minute after Sead Kolasinac pushed Dejan Lovren in the back in the box.
Up stepped Firmino this time to despatch a rocket penalty into the right corner leaving Leno helpless – and his team-mates powerless to prevent the disaster. Substitute Jordan Henderson was just inches away from a sixth for Liverpool in the dying minutes.