Port Vale striker Tom Pope created plenty of headlines in the lead up to his side's FA Cup clash at Manchester City and he has created more after bagging the equaliser at the Etihad Stadium.
Pope heavily criticised City defender John Stones on social media when he was watching the latter in action for England last summer.
The Vale skipper was scathing about the England defender during the European Nations Cup semi-final defeat by Holland last summer and suggested that he would get the better of the defender should they ever face each other.
Pope tweeted: "Just watched the highlights of the England game! I know I’m a league 2 player, I know he plays for England, I know he’s on £150k a week, I know he’s a million times better player than me but I’d love to play against John Stones every week! I’d get 40 a season!”
As fate would have it, City were drawn to face Vale in the third round of the FA Cup and Stones named at centre-back to take on Pope, who was also included up front for the visitors.
Oleksandr Zinchenko may have opened the scoring for the hosts in the 20th minute but Pope grabbed the equaliser when he headed home 15 minutes later.
In reality, it had been Taylor Harwood-Bellis covering Pope, with the City defender caught out for the goal.
Sergio Aguero, however, gave City a 2-1 advantage just before the break to save the home side's blushes.
Pope, though, has been capturing the imagination on social media thanks to the remarkable story, which had Pep Guardiola fuming ahead of the contest.
Guardiola was unhappy with Pope’s disrespectful tweet. When asked about it, he replied: 'It was not nice, it was not nice'.
But social media has been abuzz this evening and here is the best of the reaction below.
But the drama wasn't over as Stones appeared to have netted in the second half, only for Harwood-Bellis to be handed the goal as City made it 3-1.
