Andros Townsend offers surprising reason for trolling Ronaldo after scoring against Man United

Grade A s**t-housing from Townsend

Everton winger Andros Townsend has trolled Manchester United's Cristiano Ronaldo in fantastic fashion as he copied the Portugal international's iconic celebration. Townsend ran towards the Everton fans after completing a stunning counter-attacking move, which started from Demarai Gary pressing high and winning the ball back before a passage of play led to Townsend slotting the ball past David De Gea. With Old Trafford silenced, Townsend used the opportunity to mock the 36-year-old and in perfect s**t-housing fashion, mimicked the 'Siiuuuuuu' celebration to the delight of the Toffee's supporters and the disgust of the Manchester United faithful. It certainly silenced the Old Trafford crowd, but Townsend felt that he could have spent more time working on it. He said:

"Maybe I should have spent longer on the celebration because it wasn't great"

https://twitter.com/btsportfootball/status/1444297849764777988 The 30-year-old, who couldn't stop smiling during his interview with BT Sport's Des Kelly, also confessed that he did the celebration out of respect more as oppose to mocking and described being able to play against Ronaldo as an honour.

"He's my idol." Townsend exclaimed. "I grew up watching Ronaldo. I would spend hours on the training pitch trying to execute his techniques."

As someone that grew up admiring the Portuguese star, choosing to pay homage by copying his goal celebration, after scoring against HIS side, seems like an odd way of going about it. It was the home side who had taken the lead through an Anthony Martial deflected curling effort in the first-half but in truth, it has been the away side who have looked the more dangerous side. Utilising the counter-attack to perfect effect, they troubled a United side without key man Harry Maguire in defence and have had  to resort to bringing both Ronaldo and Jadon Sancho off the bench to spark life into the side. Rafael Benitez's side aren't without their own injury problems, with the likes of Richarlison and Dominic Calvert-Lewin missing amongst a host of others and look good value for a point, or should they go on to score another. At the time of writing there is 10 minutes left as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's men look to press forward to find a winner and stop them falling further behind in the title race. Related links:

• Everton midfielder Doucoure “throws punch” at Man Utd’s Fred
• Leonardo Bonucci suggests Ronaldo had negative effect on Juventus players’ motivation
• Ole Gunnar Solskjaer tells Van de Beek he has no time for sulking

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