It’s easy for former players to say “back in my day, you wouldn’t see that,” but in this case, it’s actually true.
Ryan Giggs wasn’t impressed with the genial, jovial behaviour of some Manchester United players following their 4-0 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was smiling as he swapped shirts with Eden Hazard, while Antony Martial warmly embraced his France teammate N’Golo Kante. There’s nothing wrong with smiling or congratulating a friend, but the United legend believes some of the players on his old team chose the wrong time to do so, and appeared too casual about their crushing loss.
“You can get beat in a football match, but then when you’re getting beat and you’re swapping shirts, that is something I don’t like,” Giggs said on punditry duty for the Premier League’s TV channel.
“If you get beat 4-0, you congratulate the opposition, you thank the supporters and then you get off the pitch. You don’t stand around on the pitch swapping shirts and laughing with the team that’s just beat you.”
While most United fans will agree with Giggs’ estimation, such behaviour among players has become standard in recent years.
When the former United assistant manager says: “you don’t stand around on the pitch swapping shirts and laughing with the team that’s just beat you,” what he means is you didn’t behave like that when he was a player.
This is partly because it would have risked a dressing down from Sir Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane, but also because society and players’ values, for better or worse, are different today than they were in the early 90s, when Giggs broke through.
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