The highest-ranking Arsenal-hating Celebration Police officers revealed, with Carragher at 8)
Arsenal won an important game of football at the weekend, so that means the Celebration Police are out in force and making sure nobody gets away with enjoying it.
This joyless anti-fun taskforce isn’t solely concerned with Arsenal, but there’s no point pretending they aren’t its primary focus. Here’s our top 10 of the ranking officers, headed inevitably by Chief Inspector Keys.
10) Jason Cundy
Because it’s not just Arsenal who can fall victim to the Celebration Police. Although it is quite often Arsenal. For Cundy, though, it was Newcastle who left him sickened and appalled by being happy about a thing.
“They are a club that are used to failure,” he harrumphed while issuing a fixed penalty notice for Flagrant Happiness and Carrying On Like You’ve Won Something. “This is why they are celebrating the way they are. They think they’re a big football club and they’re not.”
That was them told. Newcastle will certainly think twice the next time they even think about doing something so silly as celebrating and being happy about qualifying for the Champions League after a two-decade absence. They hadn’t even won the Champions League! Which is the only Champions League-related thing you are allowed to celebrate!
9) Gary Neville
Neville can be more thoughtful in his criticism than some of his fellow officers, and might have half a point in his comments about immaturity and whether Arsenal have enough “calm heads” in the dressing room to try and keep the players on something approaching an even keel.
But he is guilty of using the Keysian phrase ‘over-celebrations’ – specifically in his case about the 4-2 win over Aston Villa when Arsenal scored in the 93rd and 98th minute to win a game they had trailed with half an hour to go. There really are no ‘over-celebrations’ at this point. Or indeed at any point.
There are worse and more joyless members of the force than Neville, but anyone using ‘over-celebrations’ is an instant red flag.
8) Jamie Carragher
Highlighted the danger of allowing pundits to talk over footage of players celebrating in the immediate aftermath of vital wins over their former team when getting enormously cross about some entirely harmless to and fro between Martin Odegaard and an Arsenal club photographer.
“Just get down the tunnel. You’ve won a game, three points. They’ve been brilliant, back in the title race… get down the tunnel.”
There was at least some suggestion Carragher was rowing back slightly on that extremely rattled initial response when he later channelled Neil Warnock by tweeting: ‘By all means enjoy it, but enjoy it by being disciplined!’
7) Rio Ferdinand
A brilliant contribution to the discourse around Sunday’s game from the former Man United man, who started off with the traditional “I thought Arsenal won the league the way your man was celebrating” before branching out into some interesting new areas. We very much enjoyed the observation about Mikel Arteta getting “his 10,000 steps” in before the attempt at detached amusement unravelled as he called Arsenal “Deluded FC” for being happy about a win over Liverpool.
What was particularly good about this was that Ferdinand’s reasoning was that it isn’t even Liverpool who Arsenal should be worried about, but Man City and their two games in hand. There is something wonderful about the idea that Arsenal wouldn’t be aware of three-time defending champions Man City’s position, and also the idea that Arsenal have been somehow foolish or missed an opportunity by stupidly failing to beat Manchester City in a game against Liverpool.
Naturally, given the undoubted brilliance and thus importance of Manchester City, Ferdinand had no issue with Arsenal celebrating a win against them. Oh wait.
6) Graeme Souness
Perhaps the most absurd of all Celebration Police officers, which takes some doing given who else is on this list. But while others have made absolute arses of themselves over some very trivial things indeed, only Souness has managed to get quite so rattled by something as seemingly unproblematic as a clock.
Arsenal – because of course it was Arsenal – were in his crosshairs for having a photo taken with a replica of the old Clock End clock after a 3-0 away win over Fulham. To an ordinary member of the public, this might seem quite harmless. You might not even realise it was bad at all. To a highly trained Celebration Police officer, though, it is a sure sign of Arsenal’s fundamental flaws and also those of Modern Football in general.
“Is this what the modern game has become?” he old-man-yelled-at-clouds, before adding darkly that Arteta “has form for such nonsense”.
5) Jamie O’Hara
Told Arsenal to ‘settle down’ after daring to celebrate beating Manchester City in the Community Shield before finishing his point with the traditional ‘like they’ve won the Champions League’.
As an aside, it would be quite something to see precisely how Arsenal would celebrate winning the Champions League and we are 99 per cent sure they would still get a slap on the wrist for going over the top about it.
More recently issued a caution to Newcastle for celebrating an FA Cup win over local rivals Sunderland, which is clearly unacceptable. How precisely were Newcastle celebrating this win? “Like you’d won the FA Cup.” Of course they were.
But as a former Spurs midfielder turned mid-ranking Celebration Police officer you already know where and when he is at his busiest. His finest bit of celebration policing surely came after Arsenal beat Spurs 3-1 back in 2021, a result which according to O’Hara, Arsenal celebrated like they’d won the league, won the title and in a virtuoso flourish “won Europe”.
“It’s embarrassing,” O’Hara concluded. It sure is, Jamie. It sure is.
4) Roy Keane
Showed his range by recently getting cross with Marcus Rashford for being insufficiently happy after scoring against Tottenham, but mainly to be found looking suspiciously at Brazilian players dancing while winning World Cup knockout games.
I’ve never seen so much dancing. It’s like watching Strictly!
I don’t like this. I know it’s about culture, but I think it’s really disrespectful to the opposition.
It’s 4-0 and they’re doing it every time.
‘I don’t mind the first jig but after that and then the manager getting involved with it? I’m not happy with it, I don’t think it’s good at all.”
Wonderfully on-brand stuff from the great man, who at the very same tournament was to be found whipping off his shirt and celebrating like he’d won a five-a-side kickabout between ITV and BBC pundits.
As is necessary for all Celebration Police officers, Keane always keeps a close eye on Arsenal. A 4-0 win over Newcastle back in 2020 attracted notable derision from the former United skipper, who produced an interesting variation on the traditional “carrying on like they’ve won something” with an “I thought they were 10 points clear at the top of the league the way they were celebrating”.
This is particularly noteworthy now, because Arsenal celebrating wins when they were several points clear at the top of the league last season was also by then entirely unacceptable.
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3) Chris Sutton
There’s more than a hint of the performative about the grumpy media niche Sutton has carved for himself, and some of the lowest-hanging fruit for that role comes from celebration policing. Sutton should be better than that, really, but it too often proves irresistible.
Among his targets have been Mykhaylo Mudryk after scoring against Arsenal (“I don’t think you should be allowed to celebrate a goal if you don’t mean it”), Rangers for celebrating a win over Celtic despite not winning any trophies (“I would be ashamed to hear that guff”), Rangers for celebrating reaching the Europa League group stage (“How low is the bar?”) and Rangers manager Steven Gerrard with a classic “celebrating like he’d won the league” after beating Celtic.
Definite theme emerging for the former Celtic striker here – can’t think why – and Sutton remains one of the most likely officers in the entire force to deploy a withering “Carrying on like they’d won the Champions League/World Cup/Scottish League Cup”.
2) Gabriel Agbonlahor
The former Aston Villa striker turned radio gobsh*te had an attack of the vapours when Arsenal celebrated a 1-0 win at Villa Park in 2022, issuing a textbook ‘like they’d won the Champions League’, with his subsequent apology after being schooled by Laura Woods somewhat undone by then getting very cross with, checks notes, Arsenal celebrating a win at Villa Park in 2023.
His ire this time was reserved for Gabriel Martinelli and his apparent “lack of respect” for celebrating before he’d even scored. This is, of course, one of the very best things a footballer can do. There are two reasons. First, imagine if they then somehow Ronnie Rosenthaled the open goal having already celebrated and how funny that would be. Second, a successful pre-celebration such as Martinelli’s is guaranteed to generate enough salt to keep the roads clear in even the harshest of winters.
Agbonlahor added: “He was celebrating like he’d won a cup final, that’s what fans want to see.” Oh, sorry, no. My mistake. That was former Aston Villa player Gabriel Agbonlahor on then Aston Villa boss Steven Gerrard after an Aston Villa victory. Not sure what made that one different.
1) Richard Keys
It cannot be healthy to hate anyone or anything as much as Keys hates Mikel Arteta. Keys is far from the only officer to target Arsenal for the bulk of his policing work, but he is the most virulent and repetitive and a huge reason why it is perceived so much as an anti-Arsenal thing rather than a more general anti-fun thing.
Few are more committed to the bit than ol’ hairy hands. Beating title rivals Liverpool was never going to be enough to justify whatever celebrations Arteta served up, with Keys bizarrely suggesting that Arteta should show a “little more class” and “a bit of dignity” which is, let’s just say, extremely f***ing rich. His main issue here was seemingly that Arsenal’s second goal was “a gift” and of course we all know you’re only actually allowed to celebrate 30-yard thunderbastards, aren’t you?
Of course, we must take this criticism in good faith from a man who was unhappy with Arsenal’s celebrations after beating Fulham because they were a newly-promoted side and Arsenal were, you guessed it, ‘running around like they’d just won the CL’.
“Save the drama for a win over Spurs,” he insisted at the time. Then when Aaron Ramsdale got kicked by a Spurs supporter for celebrating a win over Spurs, Richard Keys blamed… Ramsdale. And Arteta. And Ben White.
Ramsdale’s got form for winding supporters up and apparently has been having an exchange during the course of that second half with those Tottenham fans. Ben White as well who was over there.
You know, 2-0 to Arsenal, you know, that. My fear is and I’ve said it for a long time now, that the guy in the middle there [Arteta] is the one that’s most to blame for the inflammatory behaviour on the touchline.
And if he’s not behaving himself, then it’s likely that others in his team are not going to either. Who ultimately then becomes the master of discipline? That isn’t anyone.
What’s great about Keys is that for a high-ranking officer, he isn’t afraid to get involved in the small stuff either, highlighted by his obsession with Arteta’s wanderings beyond his technical area. You just know Keys would give him a ticket if he could.
MAILBOX: When did Arsenal become so small-time with their ‘Starboy’ and over-celebrations?
