Neal Maupay has taken Robbie Savage’s title as the Premier League’s pantomime villain

The great villains of modern British football are a diverse bunch, spanning hardmen, cheats, thugs, racists and people who sometimes kick their cats. One subspecies stirs more anger than the rest combined, the knowing irritant. Think Robbie Savage, Craig Bellamy and increasingly Brentford’s Neal Maupay.

Did you hear? He sent a glitterbomb to Kyle Walker. He drove his car to James Maddison’s house and did doughnuts in his front garden. He offered to shake Sean Dyche’s hand, pulled his away at the last moment, stuck his tongue out, then punched him in the face. None of these things are true but anything seems possible now the striker has become the Premier League’s leading antagonist.

Once you would have said that was a crowded field, not so much now in the era of the vanilla footballer. These are young men, rich too, so surely behaving as reprehensibly as ever in private. Most are savvy enough to keep their unsavoury behaviour obscured beneath a feed of training ground pictures with captions about “grinding”.

Not so Maupay, who crossed a line for the 57th time on Monday night.

Walker lost his temper about something the Frenchman said. Lip-readers assembled and suggested Walker accused Maupay of insulting his family. You knew this was transgressive when both coaches clammed up in unison afterwards. Pep Guardiola and Thomas Frank can usually deflect with charm, both seemed to be simmering. This is the Maupay effect.

Any negativity from Frank is harsh, given his player’s rare scoring streak. But like all great strikers, there is so much more to Maupay’s game than goals. Trash-talking in football usually revolves around halitosis or an opponent’s laughably low five-figure weekly wages. Maupay is finding new heights, bothering players who would never usually bite.

In the field of celebration-stealing, Maupay is a world leader. He cupped his ears at Palace fans in the style of Wilfried Zaha when at Brighton then gleefully nicked James Maddison’s dart-throwing when scoring early at Spurs last week. On both occasions, highly on-brand, he ran straight towards opposing fans rather than seek out his own.

Then there is his habit of doubling down. After Spurs rallied to beat Brentford and Maddison appeared to win the last-laugh battle, Maupay posted a picture of his darts routine with the caption “Went a bit early with that one…”. Fine, good, self-aware. “More goals and less relegations in my career than James Maddison.” Leave it!

All of this combines to make Maupay an infuriating and effective pot-stirrer, Hounslow’s answer to Paul from the Traitors.

Mischief turns to malevolence at times, jumping into Bernd Leno late in June 2020, after which the Arsenal goalkeeper injured his knee. This opened the door for Emiliano Martinez in the Arsenal team, which earned him a place in Argentina’s World Cup squad, which probably made the difference as they won the trophy. So Lionel Messi owes Maupay a thank-you card for his butterfly effect.

Martinez too, although you would not know it from their skirmishes in December, with playacting on either side, a case of immovable object meeting unstoppable nause.

Maupay is not all bad. His presence at training for the Brentford Penguins football club for youngsters with Down’s Syndrome clearly made the day of all involved, and Maupay later dedicated his goal against Wolves to their players.

Some remain unimpressed. “Neal Maupay is an irrelevance,” said Simon Jordan on Talksport this week, adding quite fairly on Walker, “he only becomes relevant if you make him relevant”.

Is it all an act? “Neal is a madman,” said team-mate Nathan Collins, so perhaps not.

Instead it seems as if Maupay’s antagonism is a response to his limitations. He was not just lacking for Everton but frequently woeful. Ultravillain is a glow-up for a player whose name was synonymous with “goal drought” when he returned to Brentford.

His behaviour lately is immature and irresponsible, but an enjoyable subplot, as long as it is not at your team’s expense. It does football no harm to have its propriety punctured occasionally.

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