Speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast, Sam Allardyce has come out to bat for Richarlison after he caused a bit of controversy with his celebration against South Korea on Monday.
Richarlison celebrated his goals on Monday evening with a bit of a dance, and, as ever, Roy Keane found a reason to moan.
Indeed, the pundit labelled Richarlison as disrespectful, bringing about a wave of conversation around something that really doesn’t matter all that much.
Allardyce has defended Richarlison, claiming that celebrations like this bring some much-needed character to the game.
Allardyce backs Richarlison
The ex-Bolton boss spoke about the Spurs star alongside Tony Bellew.
“You can’t condemn Richarlison for doing a bit of a dance, let them enjoy it!” Bellew said.
“I mean, do fans not like those celebrations? I think we’re trying to dumb down celebrations, no going into the crowd, no taking your shirt of, no this, that or the other. Now we have something a bit different. It should be in the game, we’ve lost character in the way people celebrate their goals,” Allardyce said.
“Everyone just does a knee slide now, but this is something different.”
Allardyce loves it
Allardyce is often seen as a bit of an old fashioned manager who would be the type to hate this sort of thing, but he always encouraged individuality within his players.
Whether it be dancing with Jay-Jay Okocha at Bolton after the final day of the season or Kevin Nolan’s famous chicken celebration, Allardyce’s players were never afraid to celebrate.
Football is meant to be fun, and if players can’t have a bit of a dance after scoring a goal, then we may be taking this all a bit too seriously.
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