What Diogo Jota did v West Ham that has got Liverpool fans talking

Diogo Jota rounded off another strong Liverpool performance over the weekend by scoring their third goal in their 3-1 win over West Ham, but why has his celebration got fans talking? Whilst it wasn’t any sort of controversial or bold statement, many were confused by his gesture following his goal - but there’s a simple explanation.

Having celebrated with his teammates, he stepped off into space to make an upside down triangle with his hands which he showed to the fans. His celebration was a reference to the latest EA Sports FC 24 game that is set to be released in four days time.

It’s the first game from EA Sports that isn’t called FIFA following their decision to change it after over 29 editions of the game that date back to 1994. Jota, who is a notorious gamer, is clearly excited about the new game and it isn’t the first time he’s referenced gaming; after scoring the winner in the 4-3 epic against Tottenham Hotspur last season, he sat down and did a crossed-legged celebration which garnered similar attention.

Furthermore, it was revealed last week that Jota, playing under the gamer tag DiogoJota18 on Playstation, ranked as having the 70th highest match earnings before the game has even been released. He totalled nearly 20,000 match earnings earlier last week which means he is spending a lot of free time at the moment sat with a controller in his hand.

One fan even shared a pic of a game in which he faced Jota in a previous edition of FIFA, quoting that ‘Hopefully we can meet again this FIFA so I can have my revenge’ and the screenshot of the result also shows Jota’s current gamer tag has been established since 2014 meaning he has been a gamer for nearly 10 years.

Clearly, it hasn’t affected his on-the-pitch form as he has two goals in six appearances so far this season, but he has a fight on his hands for game time given Darwin Nunez is in glittering form and there’s still Luis Diaz and Cody Gakpo ahead of him.