Obviously, Ekitike had a stupid couple of moments with both bookings. I don't think he took the shirt off in celebration of scoring a great (it wasn't) or winning goal. After he took the shirt off, he turned it around to show his name. There's been a lot of talk recently about Ekitike playing second fiddle to Isak, I think he was responding to that attention.
We are not getting to Jan without a CB injury Probs be VVD then all we will hear is - you only won cause you kept VVD injury free whilst telling us he is not that good a player - not a great CB etc etc
I don't know if it was in response to that specifically but I agree that to me it looked more like a pre-planned statement than an overwhelming surge of emotion.
I don't like players talking their shirt off after scoring, I think it's mad but I also think it's mad for it to be a bookable offence. Obviously all players know this and some do it regardless so it wasn't like Ekitike didn't know. Just when I beginning to see him as.cool, calm and collected ....
I mean it happened last season. Konate was out for a stint. Gomez stepped up. Gomez tends to look better when he's been able to string a few games together so, as poor as he was yesterday, I wouldnt go in full on panic mode about it.
I agree - I’ve never been able to fathom why they do it. People say it's exuberance, but still... jump around, shout, go through your silly little routines if you must, but what on earth possesses someone to want to pull their shirt off I've no idea.
Gomez had a poor game but it's likely a one-off. He plays better alongside Virgil. Leoni's mother is a physiotherapist so he will have additional medical help. Should get the results of his scan today.
Yeah, not an excuse as been a yellow for so long and it’s a weird celebration anyway - but no idea why it needs to be a yellow. Such a weird rule to bring in.
Also have to take into account he has kid debutant next to him and had Endo Nyoni infront who 1, aren’t great getting the ball to feet in the turn, and 2, is young inexperienced kid. Stick Mac/grav/szobo in that midfield and suddenly has a bit more protection and can give the ball to them under pressure and let them deal with it rather than trying to force it or play 1-2s as Endo can’t turn on the ball under any pressure. Games like that I don’t think can really use to get a proper judge of a player as always a bit of a mess, especially early in season when 50% of them probably aren’t fully match fit either.
I agree. The problem is gomez gets a few weeks then gets some injury. Konate is likely to dive in somewhere and hurt himself doing it as anything. Its mid September. Theres 21 games to be played before anything can be done aboit this so it is what it is. If it were 5 games with gomez I'd shrug it off. If its 10 I'd start to worry he wont make the pace and get injured. But most of all it'll mean all 3 must roate at times amd if I were slot I'd be starting to give gomez 10/15mins at rb where possible just to sharpen him up. Had his issue last night was being uncomfortable at lcb imo. But he was making bad errors on tje ball and in retracting runs
They really did it to stop slogans on shirts but they put it sown to delaying the restart of games. It'd a fifa and uefa rule so across all the sport and since 2004. So basically Ekitike from the first moment he kicked a ball was subject to this rule and should know better. Tearing your clothes off in celebration seems stupid to me but its done by some players to show their abs. They should be getting a 2week fine every time by the fa given to a proper charity to soften their cough if its thst big a deal.
Its an odd one and I cant say i saw.it but you.get the usual folks going i saw this or that or second hand so you.dont know but we do know when they produce the gas then its severe.
Apparently Ekitike's celebration was a copy of Messi's El Clasico celebration in 2017. The two players had a good connection while at PSG together. Messi nicknamed Ekitike 'el Fierro' which means iron rod in English. And that's the trivia for the day.