Roy Keane lashed out at Harry Maguire’s “embarrassing” goal celebration after the defender opened the scoring for England against Albania at Wembley.
Maguire slid on his knees and cupped his hands behind his ears in a combative celebration to his goal in Friday night’s World Cup qualifier, leaving the television pundits to produce a withering assessment.
Maguire’s celebration was interpreted as hitting out at his critics from Manchester United’s poor form, which has put Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s job on the line, with the Red Devils slipping to sixth in the Premier League table.
And that left an infuriated ex-United star Keane to pull no punches in his half-time analysis.
“I think he puts his hands to his ears like he’s shut the critics up, but I think that’s embarrassing,” Keane told ITV.
“He’s been a disgrace the last few months for Manchester United. If he thinks [when] he scores he’s going to shut his critics up… embarrassing.”
Maguire’s antics left the clutch of form England stars analysing the encounter at best underwhelmed.
“You don’t need to do it,” Ian Wright told ITV. “It’s something I probably would have done, but you look at it now and think you don’t need that, because you’ve got a lot of football to play.
“Don’t give them the opportunity to say you’ve got to him, just play your game, Harry.”
Jermain Defoe insisted Maguire’s attitude could leave supporters with a dim view of his approach.
“You don’t need to do it, you’ve scored the goal – it’s a good goal,” Defoe told ITV.
“What it does is put a sour taste in people’s mouths. I don’t like that. It gives people the opportunity to wait for that bad performance again, to have a go at him.”
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