{"id":655169,"date":"2026-10-15T04:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-15T04:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655169\/"},"modified":"2026-10-15T04:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T04:48:10","slug":"mason-greenwood-destroyed-by-aston-villa-fans-in-public-service-booing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/655169\/","title":{"rendered":"Mason Greenwood destroyed by Aston Villa fans in public service booing"},"content":{"rendered":"

After many felt let down by the lack of ill-will aimed at Manchester City<\/a> by Liverpool fans acting as the first responders to the greatest sporting scandal in English football history on Sunday, the Aston Villa faithful did us all proud on Wednesday as Mason Greenwood made his first appearance on these shores in nearly five years.<\/p>\n

Greenwood\u2019s<\/a> last match in England \u2013 a 1-0 Manchester United win over West Ham in January 2022 \u2013 came eight days before he was arrested and later charged with attempted rape, controlling and coercive behaviour and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.<\/p>\n

He denied all wrongdoing and the charges were dropped in February 2023 before he rebuilt his career at Getafe, Marseille and now Fenerbahce.<\/p>\n

Roberto De Zerbi is certainly aware of the strength of feeling in England surrounding Greenwood, whom he described as a \u201cgood guy\u201d who had \u201cpaid a heavy price\u201d in their time together at Marseille<\/a>. He issued an \u201cI\u2019m sorry if you were offended\u201d half-apology upon being appointed by Tottenham in response to a Spurs fan group launching a \u2018no to De Zerbi\u2019 campaign for \u201cdownplaying the seriousness of what happened\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Fenerbahce fans, aware of the talent they had secured after Greenwood\u2019s 48 goals in 81 appearances for Marseille, mobbed the 25-year-old at Istanbul airport following his \u20ac39m signing. He enjoyed no such warm welcome at Villa Park.<\/p>\n

His name was booed as the teams were announced ahead of kick-off and he was booed every single time he touched the ball from then on out, while every misplaced pass, heavy touch and scuffed shot was met with jubilant jeers. Football fans really are the best sometimes.<\/p>\n

Mason Greenwood gets hostile reception at Villa Park on return to English football \ud83d\udea8 #UCL https:\/\/t.co\/ljHHksCsQb<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Sun Football \u26bd (@TheSunFootball) October 14, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cNot enough conviction from Greenwood\u201d was the Adam Summerton commentary line dripping in glorious irony as the United academy graduate failed to make any impact as Aston Villa stormed into a 3-0 lead before the break thanks to a Johan Manzambi goal on his Champions League debut and a brilliant brace from Nicolas Jackson in what threatened to be the lefty football hipsters\u2019 favourite ever half of football.<\/p>\n

The very, very loud call of \u201cGreenwood, what\u2019s the score? Greenwood, Greenwood, what\u2019s the score?\u201d as he trudged for the tunnel at half-time secured that accolade.<\/p>\n

Greenwood wouldn\u2019t be drawn on the dropped charges upon his unveiling at Marseille, and later batted away a question in an interview with La Provence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not wish to enter into any controversy,\u201d he said.\u201dI already had the opportunity to express myself on this subject last year, it is now behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s faced no such questions in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey is a good environment for Mason Greenwood,\u201d said Ziya Adnan, a football correspondent for Istanbul-based newspaper BirGun. \u201cI think probably 95 per cent of Fenerbahce fans won\u2019t know about his past or his personal life, especially the younger generation. They will only look at what he does on the pitch for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

But they should know and in what might be the first recorded instance of public service booing, those young people will now be asking why a man they have been venerating in his brief Fenerbahce career to date was so mercilessly booed in a Champions League game they will all have been watching.<\/p>\n

They may still revere him, they may grow even to idolise him, but they can now do so with all of the facts.<\/p>\n

Ross Barkley scored a couple in the second half, one from the penalty spot and another deflected from the edge of the box, before substitute Tammy Abraham scored a tap-in to make it 6-0 on what was a hugely positive night for Unai Emery and his team.<\/p>\n

But the real acclaim goes to the Aston Villa fans, who came prepared to berate Mason Greenwood and did just that, in a heartwarming reminder of the power of football after a month of questioning what the point of it all is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After many felt let down by the lack of ill-will aimed at Manchester City by Liverpool fans acting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15134,3708,10287,914,61,60,135684,43,112,9418],"class_list":["post-655169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aston-villa","tag-f365-features","tag-f365-says","tag-front-page","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mason-greenwood","tag-news","tag-sports","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}