Harry Maguire has stated he was not trying to make a message with his goal celebration against Albania on Friday, following some vehement criticism from Roy Keane. Maguire should be embarrassed for cupping his ears to celebrate his header in England’s 5-0 triumph football match, claiming that the centre-back has been so bad at club level that such a simple goal proved nothing to anyone, according to Keane.
Maguire was queried about the comments after the game and he told Sky Sports football news that the former United midfielder was exaggerating his celebration. “It was a great ball from Reece [James],” he began. “We’d worked on it, we knew the areas we could exploit and credit to all the staff for doing that.”
“I managed to direct the header into the far post and I think when you play these games, the first goal is crucial and it comes quite a lot from set-plays. We knew we’d get a lot of set-plays and we had to be clinical with them. The celebration was a knee slide, it just came naturally to me. It’s an amazing feeling to score for my country. It wasn’t directed at anyone, it just came naturally to do that and open the scoring for England and get the important three points.”
After the game, manager Gareth Southgate backed Maguire’s recent form and expressed his thoughts on the celebration. “Is he a Hulk Hogan fan? I don’t know what the celebration was for,” Southgate joked. “He’s a fabulous player, two months ago he was in Euros team of the tournament.”
“He’s rushed back because he’s the sort of player who has a huge conscience to help his club. You get lots of players who hide in the treatment room when pressure is on. He hasn’t done that and I have massive respect for that but you can go into matches not fully fit and you’re judged as fully fit in those moments.”
“I’ve had a good chat with him this week, reminded him how important he is for us, he’s been able to switch focus and have a few days on the training pitch which has probably helped, and his performance was very good.”
