Yuri Coby
Idrissa Gueye has issued a grovelling apology to his team-mates after he was dismissed for slapping Michael Keane during Everton’s 1-0 victory at Old Trafford.
The ‘moment of madness’, as match-winner Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall described it, occurred just 13 minutes into the clash against Manchester United.
After being berated by Keane for a careless pass, Gueye confronted the centre-half before raising his hand and striking him in the face, drawing a straight red card from referee Tony Harrington.
In a surprising turn of events, Everton went on to take the lead via a stellar strike from Dewsbury-Hall before holding onto their advantage come the full time whistle.
It was revealed by the Englishman and manager David Moyes post-match that Gueye had apologised in the dressing room and, now, the 36-year-old veteran has taken responsibility for his head-loss with a post on Instagram.
‘I want to apologise first to my team-mate Michael Keane,’ it read. ‘I take full responsibility for my reaction. I also apologise to my teammates, 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.’
Everton defended resiliently after the sending off, restricting the hosts to a handful of chances as they pushed desperately for an equaliser.
The victory leaves them in eleventh place, in front of struggling Merseyside rivals Liverpool and, speaking afterwards, Moyes was full of praise for his team, even claiming he ‘likes his players fighting.’
‘If nothing happened, I don’t think anyone in the stadium would have been surprised,’ the Scotsman said of the sending off. ‘I thought the referee could have taken a bit longer to think about it.
‘I got told that the rules of the game that if you slap your own player, you could be in trouble. But there’s another side to it: 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. I’m disappointed we get the sending off. But we’ve all been footballers, we get angry with our team-mates.
‘He’s apologised for the sending off, he’s praised the players and thanked them for it and apologised for what happened.’
For United, it was a result which put a dent in their hopes of achieving European football this term after a recent upturn in form.
Amorim’s side headed into the game five unbeaten in the Premier League but, in truth, never got going under the lights at Old Trafford despite having a man advantage for almost 80 minutes.
Chances were at a minimum for large parts yet, as the game neared its end, Jordan Pickford pulled off a couple of impressive saves to deny the hosts. One, the pick of them, came from a Joshua Zirkzee header which looked destined for the bottom corner.
Amorim, who has relieved himself of pressure in recent weeks, admitted afterwards that his players’ decision-making was not at the level needed.
‘Really frustrated like any other person that supports Man United,’ the former Sporting Lisbon boss said. ‘The way we started the game, the way we didn’t understand how we should play against 10 men.
‘They deserved to win. Even suffering with 10 men that is normal. We had a lot of chances but the quality and the decision-making was not there. The understanding of every situation of the game was not there. And then the quality near the box.
‘But the most important is the intensity. You can feel it right away when we start the game in the first minute you can feel when we are at the top level of intensity and when we are not. Then when we are not we cannot win in this way.’
The Red Devils were without both Matheus Cunha and Benjamin Sesko, both of whom missed out with injury.
Sesko is expected to be out for a further few weeks while Cunha, who picked up a ‘minor injury’ in training, could return at Crystal Palace on Sunday.
Everton meanwhile host Newcastle United at Hill Dickinson Stadium on Saturday.
Source: Dailymail.co.uk | Read the Full Story…
