5 Players who came back to haunt their former clubs

It’s always hard when a former player comes in and scores, just take your average Arsenal fan and point them to the general vicinity of Robin Van Persie or Emmanuel Adebayor and you will see the pain that moment illicits, but for the goal to enter ‘haunting’ territory it takes something special. A former legend who left the club in acrimonious circumstances, or a player deemed surplus for requirements returning to throw their former club out of a key competition. 

While there are many instances, we’ve tried to glean out 5 of the mosting ‘haunting’ instances...

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5. Denis Law: MANCHESTER CITY vs Manchester United

We start off with arguably the most emotional of them all. When Denis Law recommended the name of Tommy Docherty, little did he know he know that he was also signing away his career at United. The no-nonsense Scot saw that his compatriot was on the decline, and let the man who led that famed ‘Holy Trinity’ of Old Trafford to leave on a free. 

Leave he did, but Law didn’t go far. Crossing town to don the blue of City, his return to Old Trafford was marked by one of his greatest goals – a cheeky backheel that encaspulated his goalsoring genius. No one, though, has ever looked more devastated at scoring a goal. Ever.

He didn’t – like popular myth suggests – relegate United, but he did put break hearts (including his own) with an insouciant flick of that famous right foot.