Southgate says England players should show humility during goal celebrations

England coach Gareth Southgate has told his players to avoid antagonizing opposition fans, but instead show humility during goal celebrations.

Declan Rice and Jack Grealish were seen pretending to drink from some of the plastic cups that had been thrown at England players as they celebrated their goals in the 4-0 World Cup qualifying win against Hungary in Budapest on Thursday.

The celebration was in response to racist abuse directed at Raheem Sterling and Jude Bellingham.

“We needed to be a little bit careful in how our interaction with the crowd the other day was,” Southgate said. “We all recognise that certain things that happened weren’t acceptable but also we ran a little bit of a risk of inflaming some of those situations.

“The boys just have to have in the back of their minds that humility. We were playing well and we got a good result but let’s keep our professionalism, our focus. We’re going to have to play these teams again and we don’t want to give them any additional motivation with our actions.”

Hungary has already been handed a three-match supporter ban by UEFA due to racist and homophobic behaviour during Euro 2020, but that sanction is not applicable to World Cup qualifying matches as they fall under FIFA’s remit.