You have to respect the sheer level of commitment that Brentford’s Neal Maupay gives to being a complete sh1thouser on the pitch, but apparently his wind-up tactics are really getting under the skin of his fellow professionals and he’s at risk of being ‘beaten up’ any day now.
In the past couple weeks alone, Neal Maupay has…
a) Triggered James Maddison by scoring against Spurs and copying his darts celebration:
Neal Maupay doing James Maddison’s celebration and he was not happy pic.twitter.com/kVRrz9kBGq
— The 44 ⚽️ (@The_Forty_Four) January 31, 2024
He even managed to continue trolling Maddison after the game on Instagram despite Brentford losing the match:
b) Almost got knocked out by Kyle Walker after apparently saying something about his kids during the Brentford/Man City game last Monday:
‘He spoke about my kids’
Kyle Walker letting the referee know
First Maddison, Now Walker.
Neil Maupay is a professional wind up merchant pic.twitter.com/gDB1VqLrMe
— Football (@Football__X) February 6, 2024
c) Tried to rank Pierre Emerick Aubameyang 11th in a Top 10 list on TikTok:
Maupay is a menace pic.twitter.com/em7kS2PSy7
— george (@StokeyyG2) February 7, 2024
That’s all literally in the last week alone but there’s loads more examples of Neal Maupay being a prick going back years in the Premier League. Unsurprisingly, he’s now been described as ‘the most disliked person’ on the field by West Ham’s Michail Antonio, who had this to say about Maupay on the Footballer’s Football Podcast earlier:
‘Maupay is known to be a bit of a wind-up.
I know someone who knows him and he’s meant to be a nice guy off the pitch but he does it on purpose.
I feel he goes on the pitch to rub people up the wrong way and he’s known for it now.
He is probably the most disliked person on the field. One of these days he is going to get beaten up! Back in the day things used to happen in the tunnel, but it’s 2024 now and you probably wouldn’t get away with it.’
Despite all that, Antonio actually enjoys Maupay’s antics:
‘I’m not going to lie, I rate it! I rate it for him. It’s not something I would do but it’s part of his character, the fact he can just put it on in a game and 90% of the time he knows what he is doing, so it’s a skill that he has.
But there is going to be a day where someone is not going to have it and at half-time and at the end of the game he’s going to be in trouble. He better start practising kickboxing!’
Of course it’s always fun to watch players like Neal Maupay winding up the opposition when it’s not happening to your own team, but it’s also generally a good thing to have a non-robotic footballer expressing his personality like this on the pitch. Keep it coming, Maupay!
My personal favourite Neal Maupay moment – the time he rattled Ty from Arsenal Fan TV and prompted him to create this viral meme:
Better watch out for those incoming blue cards, though.
