Everton’s Idrissa Gueye was sent off for slapping his own teammate Michael Keane during their Premier League win over Manchester United on Tuesday (AEDT).
The incident unfolded in the 13th minute with the game still goalless. United captain Bruno Fernandes had just gone close with a shot when Gueye and Keane began arguing inside their own half. Keane appeared to push the midfielder away twice before Gueye responded by raising his hand into the defender’s face.
Jordan Pickford was forced to intervene, dragging the pair apart, but referee Tony Harrington wasted little time. He walked over and showed Gueye a straight red card for violent conduct.
The Premier League’s Match Centre later stated on X that VAR had checked and confirmed the decision, describing Gueye’s action as a “clear strike to the face of Keane”.
Under the laws of the game, violent conduct includes striking “an opponent or any other person on the head or face with the hand or arm” unless the force is negligible.
The score was 0-0 at the time but 10-man Everton grabbed a famous win when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scored the only goal of the game with a long-range rocket.
“I couldn’t understand it,” said Everton manager David Moyes of the red card decision. “I don’t think anyone could have expected it. [Fourth official] Anthony Taylor told me by the letter of the law if you raise your arm you can be sent off.
“I don’t think anyone else in the stadium would have thought anything of it. I quite like it when my players fight with each other because it shows they care and [put the] demands on players. Disappointed he got sent off. He’s apologised. He praised the team and is grateful for the result. We move on.”
Gueye is the first player to be sent off in the Premier League for fighting with a team-mate since Ricardo Fuller with Andy Griffin for Stoke on 28 December 2008.
Dewsbury-Hall said: “It was just a moment of madness. It was obviously avoidable. All I can say is Idrissa apologised to us all at half-time and said his piece. That’s all he can do and we move on from it.
“The reaction from the lads after it was unbelievable, top tier. We could’ve easily crumbled, gone in on ourselves and lost the game comfortably, but it probably made us grow even more as a team.
“The manager just said he would deal with the situation another time and it was just about keeping to the plan that we had. He just wanted us to continue what we were doing and focus on the things we can change.”
Former Everton and Man United star Wayne Rooney said: “To get a player sent off for slapping your team-mate is disappointing. [Everton manager] David Moyes will be absolutely raging in the dressingroom.”
Ex-United striker Michael Owen added: “Gueye obviously thinks Keane should be switched on to his little pass, but obviously Keane wasn’t.
“And he runs over to him quite aggressively (and) he looks like he’s the instigator and all of that.
“Michael Keane sort of pushes him away and then a slap comes in. And it’s hard to argue, really. It doesn’t hurt Michael Keane in any way, but you can’t slap people in the face.
“That’s the rule, basically, and there is a clear slap in the face. I don’t think the referee’s got much alternative there.”
Former England and Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Monday Night Club, suggested the confrontation did not come out of nowhere.
Hart said something “must have been brewing” between the pair before the sending-off. He added that Keane, the bigger of the two, initially shrugged Gueye off with one arm before the argument escalated.
“The referee wasn’t even close enough to hear what Idrissa Gueye was saying but he was in Michael Keane’s face,” Hart said.
“When he came over to continue the argument, the referee just casually walked over and sent him off. Jordan Pickford did very well in the situation. If that is all that happened though, it isn’t a red card. Something must’ve been brewing between them two.”
The Roarhttps://https://ift.tt/cP1Bngd: ‘Moment of madness’ – Premier League star sensationally SENT OFF for striking teammate
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