{"id":202596,"date":"2025-12-20T22:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/202596\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T22:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T22:05:09","slug":"gary-neville-chastises-xavi-simons-for-ridiculous-red-card-against-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/202596\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Neville chastises Xavi Simons for \u2018ridiculous\u2019 red card against Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Gary Neville<\/a> laid into Xavi Simons<\/a> after a \u201cridiculous challenge\u201d on Virgil van Dijk<\/a> saw the Tottenham midfielder sent off in the first half of Spurs\u2019 Premier League clash with Liverpool<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Simons was chasing down Van Dijk before lunging ambitiously towards the Liverpool<\/a> captain, raking his studs down his Dutch compatriot\u2019s calf while getting nowhere near the ball.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old was initially shown a yellow card by referee John Brooks before VAR intervened, advising him to the pitch-side monitor to review his decision.<\/p>\n

The caution was subsequently upgraded to a straight red card as Simons was given his marching orders just after the half-hour mark, something co-commentator Neville thought was completely warranted.<\/p>\n

\"Xavi<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

Xavi Simons saw red after a VAR review (REUTERS)<\/p>\n

\u201cSimons was never going to get there,\u201d he said on Sky Sports\u2019 broadcast of the game. \u201cHe rakes his studs right down the back of Van Dijk’s leg. That’s not clever. It\u2019s a poor, poor challenge. It\u2019s a ridiculous challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is absolutely nowhere near the football. Malicious, nasty, reckless? Whatever you want to call it. Stupidity.<\/p>\n

“Virgil van Dijk<\/a> is six foot four and 15 stone. If it is the other way around, it’s a leg breaker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simons saw red after his challenge was deemed as serious foul play, which constitutes as \u201ca tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality\u201d.<\/p>\n

Simons has struggled to make an impact at Tottenham since his \u00a352m arrival from RB Leipzig in the summer, managing just a goal and two assists in the Premier League<\/a> this season.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The damage done to Virgil van Dijk\u2019s sock after Simons\u2019 challenge (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

While able to sympathise with the Dutchman amid his on-pitch his struggles, Neville said Simons could have no complaints about the referee\u2019s verdict, something that was demonstrated by the reaction of his teammates.<\/p>\n

“Thomas Frank<\/a> is having a whinge about it, but none of the Tottenham players are complaining. The ones who have seen it are going ‘what are you doing?’<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the fact he\u2019s nowhere near the ball. When you put your studs down someone\u2019s ankle (or) calf like that from behind, you\u2019re asking for big trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a player that\u2019s struggling. Struggling with his form, struggling mentally. He\u2019s just tried to involve himself in the game by somehow trying to put a bit of fight into it, a bit of muscle into it, but that\u2019s not the way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-202596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202596","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=202596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}