It’s perfectly understandable that some players won’t celebrate against their old clubs, but some of the apologising and muted celebrations for players who left the club years ago is getting ridiculous.
You can understand certain situations like Henrik Larsson returning to Celtic Park with Barcelona or Cristiano Ronaldo at Old Trafford, but players should celebrate against their former clubs.
Obviously some restraint needs to be shown because we can’t have players doing an Adebayor and trying to start a riot every week, but it would be better if there was more of a middle ground.
READ MORE: Video: Theo Walcott scores a beautiful chip and celebrates against ex-club Arsenal with opener for Southampton
Theo Walcott showed the perfect example when he opened the scoring for Southampton tonight at the Emirates – he wasn’t trying to goad anyone or anything like that, he was just enjoying a moment of scoring against a club who wrote him off.
That doesn’t mean the Arsenal fans are happy to see him celebrating, with a few fans claiming that he was being disrespectful:
Walcott celebrating like that has lost so much respect in my eyes …
— Jonty Weidemann (@WeidemannJonty) December 16, 2020
Wait but why did Walcott celebrate like that? Very disrespectful
— S?? (@AFC28S) December 16, 2020
Arsenal is officially in a rut ??. What breaks my heart more is seeing Theo Walcott celebrate after he scored against the team that raised you for 10 years ???
— Fola ?? (@StarboyFola) December 16, 2020
Walcott even had the audacity to celebrate in the Emirates?
— Vusumuzi Makubalo (@VusaMakubalo) December 16, 2020
It hurts seeing walcott celebrate against us
— jennifer (@cumberdisco) December 16, 2020
There is no way I’ve actually just seen Theo Walcott celebrate against us
— Nicholas Lee (@Lee01Nicholas) December 16, 2020
Walcott actually celebrated man.. no respect and I don’t even blame him ?
— ????????? (@NatiAFC) December 16, 2020
Walcott sef no get any sense!!! No respect for the Club that gave you a chance. Idiot!!!???
— ?T-Boy? (@StreetlineC) December 16, 2020
leave him let him enjoy himself. He will score another goal in second half
Arsenal deserve no respect