Sunderland defender Dan Ballard explains 'strong man' goal celebration

Dan Ballard is in top form for Sunderland, and he says finally feeling injury free is a big part of that.

Dan Ballard says he is finally no longer worrying about injuries for perhaps the first time in his Sunderland career, and he has also explained where his ‘strong man’ goal celebration came from.

Ballard signed for Sunderland in the summer of 2022 and impressed immediately, but he suffered a broken foot in just his third game. He battled back and impressed again before suffering an injury on international duty that ruled him out for the rest of the campaign.

It wasn’t his first brush with injury problems either. He saw loan spells with Swindon and Millwall both ended by injury earlier in his career.

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However, he is now confident that he has put those problems behind him.

“Personally, I feel really good,” Ballard told Sky Sports. “I feel in a good spot.

“It's nice just going into games being able to concentrate on the football and enjoy your football rather than thinking about other things like injuries.

“So I feel like I'm in a spot now where I can really work on my game go and enjoy my football. Just being injury free is brilliant.

Being injury free has also contributed to Dan Ballard adding goals to his game this season. He has scored three so far, making it his best goalscoring season of his career so far.

They have been accompanied by a strong man celebration, but he insists there is no real reason behind it. He says he just did it once in training ‘for fun’ and there is nothing more to it than that.

“Yeah I don't know why I've done that really,” Ballard said of his strong man celebration. “I think it was fun when I've done it in the week and then I've done it with my first goal at QPR.

“So it's just kind of kind of stuck now. I don't know if I'll keep it that long.”

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