This week I ought to most likely be discussing opinions such because the Premier League being carried out as a product in the event that they don’t correctly comply with by and punish golf equipment caught breaking the principles (Everton, Manchester Metropolis, Chelsea).
Or opining on why the vast majority of fan criticism levelled at Gareth Southgate merely stems from followers being bored.
These subjects can wait. As an alternative I’ve one thing greater I have to get off my chest. An epidemic is sweeping the sport and threatening to spoil the spectacle of objective celebrations for me. I’m speaking about knee slide celebrations.
Groundsman – can I get an AMEN?
Gameweek 12 noticed 37 objectives scored throughout the Premier League, eight of those – EIGHT – provoked knee-sliding celebrations. Eight knee slides, Jeremy? That’s insane.
Brennan Johnson, Mario Lemina, Josh Brownhill, Vitaliy Mykolenko, Thiago Silva, Erling Haaland, Nicolas Jackson and Rodri. Eight grown males slid on their knees like they have been attending their first marriage ceremony reception.
Earlier this 12 months comic Karl Porter went viral when his reenactment of a slow-motion objective, full with knee-slide celebration, was shared by tens of millions.
The skit is impressed. Mats Hummels described it as “perfection” and he’s proper. Porter has perfected the act proper all the way down to the delicate hip rotation on the finish because the knee slide reaches its conclusion. He even does an indication of the cross on his chest earlier than wanting as much as god.
@copa90
♬ unique sound – COPA90
Knee slides are so embedded in football tradition, so widespread, they’re now comedy sketch fodder. That is the place the issue lies.
The shine has completely gone from them as an act. They’re daft. They’re as foolish as gamers who carry out two little hops, a skip and contact the grass as they enter the sector of play – generally even including a pirouette so that they enter the sector strolling backwards. You’ve seen this, proper? If not, maintain your eyes peeled. Coming quickly from me: 500 phrases on that oddity.
The football knee-slide ought to be retired with the Klinsmann dive celebration. There’s simply no originality to a knee slide celebration as a spectacle anymore.
I’ll admit Lewis Corridor’s 8.71-yard knee slide when he scored at Outdated Trafford lately was spectacular. But on the identical time, ridiculous – 8.71 yards!
Due to @mo_nufc for supplying the image. Based mostly on the scale of the pitch at Outdated Trafford – the run off areas & some guesstimation…Lewis Corridor’s knee slide measures: 📏 𝟖.𝟕𝟏 𝐘𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐬The bar has been set for the brand new season. #nufc #CheersGroundsmanIsCrying pic.twitter.com/nqwm0nqR97November 1, 2023
Watching football I’ve now developed a sixth sense for them, when a participant scores I can see it of their eyes {that a} knee slide is coming. The sparkle of ‘oh, sh*t, I’ve scored, higher do one thing’.
Possibilities of a knee slide occurring are heightened by a number of components: objectives in shut video games, the later in a recreation the objective happens, if an surprising participant scores (E.g. Dan Burn), long-range objectives or volleys (which usually imply a scorer has the area and time to wheel away and plot a line for his or her slide). The largest set off of the knee slide celebrations is, in fact, rain.
Typically knee slides go fallacious and sliders miscalculate them ending up flat on their face, and even injured. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admitted he tweaked his medial ligament whereas knee sliding after his Champions League winner in 1999. “I missed two or three weeks and a few internationals for Norway,” he recalled.
In 2018 Eden Hazard took to Chelsea’s social media channels to announce his knee sliding days have been over. “I have to cease this. My knees – they’re on hearth! No extra of this celebration.”
Stat web site Squawka revealed that 22.9% of his Chelsea objectives had been celebrated with a knee-slide.
Another factor (earlier than I’m going for a lie down) I would like to deal with the cardinal sin of knee sliding in football: a non-goalscorer knee sliding with the goalscorer and nonetheless being in slide mode when the scorer has exited their slide. Full cringe.
In 2023/24 knee slides are formally carried out. It’s an unoriginal waste of a celebration. Purpose scorers have to search for one thing else. Rejoice along with your team-mates or the followers.
Nobody has ever been in a position to do them in addition to Theirry Henry or Didier Drogba anyway. It is over.
Extra FourFourTwo opinion
Football subscription packages are making me study Welsh
Why half and half scarves are acceptable in modern-day football
Chelsea are clicking and it’s making me query the whole lot
