After the events of Monday night, when Everton midfielder Idrissa Gueye was dismissed at Old Trafford for aiming a slap at team-mate Michael Keane, the identity of this weekend’s visitors to the Hill Dickinson Stadium is laced with irony.
Newcastle United may have acquired a reputation for what defender Dan Burn endearingly described recently as “something housery”, a quality they will no doubt hope to harness when they travel to Merseyside on Saturday evening. But the aggression that has characterised Eddie Howe’s side at their best, and which David Moyes bizarrely identified in his own team following Gueye’s red card, pales in comparison to the combative edge shown by the Magpies under Graeme Souness.
It was April 2005 when David O’Leary’s Aston Villa arrived at St James’ Park to contest a mid-table Premier League battle. The game had long since been lost by the time Newcastle midfielders Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer squared up to each in the 81st minute. The home side were trailing 3-0, defender Steven Taylor had seen red for a handball offence, and it was hard to imagine how things could possibly get any worse.
Bowyer and Dyer ensured that they did. Bowyer, who had been acquitted of causing grievous bodily harm and affray outside a Leeds nightclub four years earlier, reacted furiously after Dyer, not for the first time in the match, failed to pass to him. First words were exchanged, then blows. By the time the pair had been pulled apart with Bowyer, his shirt ripped from the neck down, escorted away in a gentle but firm headlock by Villa midfielder Gareth Barry, Newcastle were down to eight men, the referee having given both men their marching orders.
How the Everton fight was played down by manager David Moyes
Gueye’s offence this week was hardly of the same order, yet it was still jarring to hear Moyes attempt to play down the incident afterwards. The Senegal international’s ire was sparked by what he saw as Keane’s failure to react promptly to a wayward pass, which allowed Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes to send a shot narrowly wide. It hardly merited the reaction that followed, particularly from a 36-year-old with 122 caps and more than 200 Premier League games to his name, yet Moyes bizarrely attempted to put a positive spin on the incident.
“I like my players fighting each other if someone didn’t do the right action,” said Moyes. “If you want that toughness and resilience to get a result, you want someone to act on it. If nothing happened [in terms of a 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 [according to] the rules of the game, 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 team-mates.”
How Graeme Souness reacted to the infamous Newcastle incident
Another view would be that managers and team-mates alike often get angry with players whose behaviour hurts the wider cause. When Bowyer and Dyer let the side down, Souness was unequivocal in his response. “You two f***ers, if you want a fight, I’ll fight the both of you,” stormed the former Liverpool boss according to Alan Shearer, who was barely less apoplectic, reportedly branding the duo “selfish pr***s”.
Moyes, another manager who likes to project a hard-man image, could perhaps be forgiven his bullishness to an extent, given that Everton’s 1-0 win was his first at Old Trafford as an opposing manager. No doubt he still harbours a sense of frustration at the way his Manchester United tenure ended with dismissal after just 10 months. Victory must have tasted especially sweet.
But the reality is that his side must now make do without the suspended Gueye, who has started each of Everton’s 12 league games this season, not only against Newcastle but also for the subsequent meetings with Bournemouth and Nottingham Forest. Following that run, the midfielder will depart for the Africa Cup of Nations. Tim Iroegbunam, who has made the starting lineup on four occasions this term, may yet prove an able deputy. But history shows losing a midfielder in the circumstances Everton did is rarely a recipe for sustained success.
Following the Bowyer-Dyer confrontation, Newcastle went into a tailspin that culminated with a 14th-place finish. Before Villa arrived on Tyneside, they were unbeaten in 12 games, winning nine and drawing three; over the 11 matches that followed, they won just twice, losing six (including five in a row). Neither did it seem to help much when Bruce Grobbelaar and Steve McManaman got in each other’s faces during the Merseyside derby in September 1993; Liverpool, who eventually limped home in eighth place, did not win in the league for almost a month.
Will Everton pay for Idrissa Gueye’s dismissal against Newcastle?
It remains to be seen whether Everton will be similarly affected. Keane and Gueye each donned a boxing glove at the club’s Finch Farm training ground this week, staging a mock fight for the cameras. The clear suggestion was that morale has not suffered, although things might have been very different had Keane also walked on Monday night, reducing Everton to nine men and diminishing their prospects of victory accordingly.
Still, the proof is on the pitch. Something for Moyes to consider as, shorn of his first-choice midfield combination, he seeks a third straight success on Saturday evening against a Newcastle side who have not won a league game on the road since April.
