It seems players won’t celebrate at all any more “out of respect” for the opposition, even if it was just against a team they were once linked with or had a trial with as a kid.
Emmanuel Adebayor’s effort for Man City against Arsenal was the gold standard, as he put every last drop of energy he had into sprinting the length of the pitch to knee slide in front of his old fans.
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Sam Clucas tried his best to re-enact that today for Stoke against Swansea:
Some players don’t celebrate against their old club…
Not Sam Clucas.
After scoring against Swansea, he went and did this in front of their fans ??#SCFC #Swans
pic.twitter.com/UprRADrNnE— Second Tier Podcast (@TheSecondTier) January 25, 2020
This was especially brave when you consider it was only to make it 1-0 in the 55th minute, so there was a lot of time for it to backfire but they went on to win 2-0.
There’s no obvious sign of an acrimonious exit from Swansea for Clucas, but clearly he felt the need to remind the fans exactly who he was.