When a player is shown a straight red card for slapping their teammate in the face, after just 13 minutes of action … that should be that, really. Game over.
How does any team, reduced to 10 men because of the utter stupidity of the 11th, recover from that sort of embarrassing situation? Tactically, psychologically? Especially when you’re playing Manchester United at Old Trafford?
The first thing to say about Everton midfielder Idrissa Gana Gueye’s send-off is that it has happened before.
The last time we saw it in the Premier League was in 2008, when Stoke City’s Ricardo Fuller slapped his own captain, Andy Griffin, in the face. They went on to lose 2-1 to West Ham United.
The most famous example, however, came three years prior, when Newcastle United teammates Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer sized each other up and started throwing haymakers while the ball was still in play, two minutes after conceding the third goal in a 3-0 defeat to Aston Villa.
Bowyer later revealed he was annoyed that Dyer hadn’t passed him the ball earlier, when he felt he was in a goalscoring position, and tensions between them boiled over. At the club’s behest, he wore the blame, missing Newcastle’s FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United as part of a six-match suspension, and was also charged by police.
History tells us, then, that nothing good follows friendly fire. Except, perhaps, when you’re playing Manchester United at Old Trafford in 2025.
Only they, it seems, could be handed such a golden opportunity by their opponents and still find a way to say: no, thanks, but we appreciate the offer.
Idrissa Gana Gueye learns of his fate after striking teammate Michael Keane.Credit: Getty Images