Not Celebrating At Your Former Club
Mo Salah is a very good footballer. In fact, you could argue he’s the best footballer in the world at the moment and that’s not even that outrageous of a statement. The man is magic, he’s on fire and is simply unplayable. Having said all that do you know one thing the Egyptian King is not good at? That’s celebrating scoring goals against his former club. He refused against both Roma and more annoyingly Chelsea. There seems to be a trend amongst footballers to not celebrate at all against their former club and I am not a fan. So for that very reason, I am putting not celebrating against your former club in football’s room 101, room 433.
Mo Salah’s refusal to celebrate against Chelsea earlier in the season particularly irked me. If its Frank Lampard or John Terry playing against Chelsea then fair enough but Salah played about 10 games for them before being cast off. Just what exactly does he owe Chelsea again? Presumably, players should stop celebrating against clubs they played for on-loan years ago. Darren Bent scored an important goal for Burton Albion against Sunderland at the weekend, a goal that kept his current club’s chances of survival alive. Sure it may have relegated Sunderland but can you blame Bent being jubilant?
Goal celebrations are brilliant. Seeing your team all unite in delight after scoring a goal – along with the fans – is one of the best aspects of football. It makes you feel apart of the team, almost apart of an extended family without getting too deep. So I think to see a footballer from your club not celebrate against one of their former clubs is poor really unless they have an almost mythical status at the former club.
Obviously, some players take it too far. There is one thing celebrating against your former club, which hopefully we have now established is fine. It is another thing to score a goal against a former club and rather than celebrate with your own fans, you chose to run up the other end of the pitch and celebrate in front of the fans of your former team. That is what Emanuel Adebayor decided would be a cracking idea when he scored for Manchester City against Arsenal. Too far, Emanuel, too far.
So that’s the first entry into the newly refurbished Room 433. So if something from the next week of football annoys you as much as not celebrating against your former club annoyed me, then tweet us @SackedITM
