Arsenal Star Aims Petty AI Social Media Swipe at Virgil van Dijk After Anfield Win

Not content with three rare points won at Anfield, Arsenal defender Piero Hincapié couldn’t resist three more words at the expense of the beaten Liverpool captain, Virgil van Dijk.

“I don’t forget...” Hincapié wrote on Instagram beside a series of three images which ended with a closely cropped, AI produced shot of the golden Premier League badge on his yellow Arsenal jersey. Unfortunately for the Ecuador international, he had not closely scrutinized the machine’s work, which produced an erroneous message of “no roam for racism” on the sleeve.

It wasn’t hard to the draw the line to a social media post Van Dijk made in January, after battling out a lifeless draw with the Gunners, which zoomed in on that same competition emblem (unblemished by AI) while Liverpool were still champions.

Piero Hincapié (left) and Virgil van Dijk. — Piero Hincapié (left) echoed Virgil van Dijk’s post. | Instagram/pierohincapie (left), Instagram/virgilvandijk

Van Dijk’s post has been bombarded by comments, presumably from Arsenal fans, reminding the center back that they, too, have not forgotten a tepid prod that was sandwiched between several more sincere posts.

Liverpool’s skipper was chiefly acknowledging the serious injury sustained by his teammate Conor Bradley in that fixture: “We are a team, we are friends but most importantly we are a family,” he wrote in the caption, echoing the final line of a hand-written fan letter.

It was a petty swipe from a player who had plenty of other reasons to celebrate rather than delving into some evening ChatGPT.

Declan Rice Makes Divisive Call of Champions

Declan Rice (left) and Piero Hincapié. — Declan Rice (left) was the star man on Sunday. | Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images

Declan Rice, who deftly teed up Kai Havertz’s winner in a blistering start for the visitors, hailed the resilience his team showed across the remaining 75 minutes which were largely dominated by the hosts. The all-action midfielder was under no doubt that this was a performance of champions.

“For sure,” Rice agreed when this point was put to him in the postmatch mixed zone. “It’s just drilled into us. What the manager [Mikel Arteta] has built at this club and the togetherness of the lads—you don’t get that performance without the lads being all together.

“The way the manager has everything under control, the way everyone works towards everything he wants is not like anything I’ve ever seen before. So credit to us for what we have been doing for the last few years. Now it’s a massive thing to deliver again this year.”

“We had to dig in and give it everything because they throw so many attacks at you,” Rice added. “We had to be resilient and strong. It was a great win.”

That is certainly one perspective. However, it could be equally argued that huddling back into a compact shell after taking such an early lead is not exactly champions’ material. Liverpool penetrated the “danger area” in front of Arsenal’s goal 26 times at Anfield, the most any team has managed against the Gunners since Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final—on that occasion, the approach of sitting on a lead did not work out too well.

While Arsenal try to maintain their stranglehold in the biggest games, Hincapié could perhpas work on his AI prompts.

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