Crystal Palace fans have bitten at a club tweet simply wishing England manager Gareth Southgate a happy birthday.
Southgate, who turned 49 on September 3, was a former Crystal Palace player and captain, and can even be seen in the club tweet lifting the then Division One trophy as Palace got promoted to the Premier League.
The England coach was born in Watford in 1970, though he grew up in Crawley which brought him to the attention of Palace. In October 1990, Southgate was handed his first-ever Palace appearance in a League Cup game vs Southend United. It wasn’t until the 91/92 season until Southgate started to properly flourish in red and blue, having played 39 appearances for the side that season in a variety of positions.
Overall, before he left the club in 1995, he amassed 191 games for Palace and scored 22 goals. He was sold to Aston Villa for £2.5m, as per CPFC.
However, any love Palace fans once had for Southgate looks to have evaporated somewhat, according to Twitter, anyway. Many Palace fans have accused the England coach of not favouring Palace players and are concerned about why he didn’t pick Aaron Wan-Bissaka for the Three Lions until he played for Manchester United.
Here are some of the responses below…
Gareth will be celebrating the day by completely ignoring all #CPFC players eligible to play for England – until they sign for a ‘top six’ team … whilst dancing like a waist-coated chancer to the tune of the FA.
— BeCo (@BeCo74) September 3, 2019
Nope. Has turned his back on us.
— Keith David Shaw (@TweetKDS) September 3, 2019
Happy birthday to the bloke who doesn’t like calling up Palace players. But now we are are top 4 side he just might give Wardy and Kelly that phone call
— Peter Mouncer (@Muncher67) September 3, 2019
https://twitter.com/dickiewaters/status/1168803614552408064?s=20
He promised whilst at this age that if he ever became England manager he would do everything in his power not to pick a palace player #keeping my word.
— EDDARD STARK (@SlySi1905) September 3, 2019
https://twitter.com/JayRaven17/status/1168806942258737152?s=20
