The aftermath of the Idrissa Gana Gueye-Michael Keane incident | OneFootball

Idrissa Gana Gueye was sent off after 13 minutes against Manchester United for bizarrely slapping his own teammate, Michael Keane.

Gana Gueye, furious at Keane for not reacting to his pass and allowing the opposition to take a shot from inside the box, confronted the centre-back and engaged in a physical altercation. Referee Tony Harrington was quick to brandish a red card and Jordan Pickford and Iliman Ndiaye acted as peacekeepers, separating Gueye from Keane and escorting him off the field.

Despite the freak incident and being reduced to 10 men, Everton fashioned out a resilient 1-0 win over Ruben Amorim’s side. It was only their second win at Old Trafford in the last 32 years - their first since 2013.

“I like my players fighting each other, if someone didn’t do the right action. If you want that toughness and resilience to get a result, you want someone to act on it,” David Moyes said after the game.

“If nothing happened [no red card], I don’t think anyone in the stadium would have been surprised. I thought the referee could have taken a bit longer to think about it. I was told that [by] the rules of the game that if you slap your own player, you could be in trouble.

“I’m disappointed we got the sending off. But we’ve all been footballers, we get angry with our teammates. He’s apologised for the sending off, he’s praised the players and thanked them for it and apologised.”

Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scored a magical goal that fired Everton into the lead just 10 minutes after the red card. It completely changed the momentum of the game after the deflating start the Toffees had experienced following the sending off and Seamus Coleman’s injury-enforced change.

The players rallied together and showed plenty of character, industry and resilience to hold on to their lead despite the numerical disadvantage.

"It was just a moment of madness. It was obviously avoidable,” Dewsbury-Hall said about the incident.

"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."

Idrissa Gana Gueye also issued a public apology to Michael Keane and his teammates for letting them down and congratulated them for the hard-fought win.

"I want to apologise first to my team-mate Michael Keane," he wrote on his official Instagram account.

"I take full responsibility for my reaction. I also apologise to my team-mates, the staff, the fans and the club. What happened does not reflect who I am or the values I stand for.

"Emotions can run high, but nothing justifies such behaviour. I'll make sure it never happens again. UTT."

The Senegalese midfielder has been an integral player for the Toffees this season but is set to be out for a prolonged period. He’ll serve a three-game ban before heading off to join his national camp for the Africa Cup of Nations.

Reader Comments (3)

Ridiculous decision by the referee. The game was less than 15 minutes old.

Whatever happened to common sense. If we all acted within the letter of the law at all times then no one would be driving a car.

The man should have taken a moment, applied some discretion, issued a yellow to both players and the game continues.

The posters on here agreeing with the red, would have a different opinion if we had lost the game.