Everton secured their first victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford for 12 years on Monday night despite a first-half red card, but the game will be best remembered for the bizarre manner in which the Toffees were reduced to 10 men. In a rare example of the lesser-seen on-pitch team-mate bust-up, midfielder Idrissa Gueye and defender Michael Keane completely lost it with one another under the eyes of 74,000 fans and plenty more watching on at home.
There is little doubt that Gueye was the aggressor in this case; the 36-year-old sold the centre-back short with a weak pass deep in his own half, and Bruno Fernandes seized on the loose ball to flash a first-time shot just wide of Jordan Pickford's far post. Refusing to take accountability for his own error, Gueye launched into a frenzied tirade and gesticulated furiously at his team-mate as they came together in their own box.
After Keane had pushed him away, the Senegal international responded by planting a slap on his cheek and was swiftly given his marching orders by the watching referee, with a combination of Pickford and Iliman Ndiaye struggling to restrain their still-incensed colleague as they escorted him from the pitch. Gueye was swift to apologise, and he has his team-mates to thank for holding on to grab a remarkable and rare away victory over Man Utd.
This was the latest entry in the limited catalogue of players on the same team coming to blows. Below, GOAL looks back on some of the most infamous incidents of football infighting of all time…
AFPRicardo Fuller vs Andy Griffin
At the peak of their Barclays era under Tony Pulis, Stoke City's XI was full of hard-man players that you simply would not want to mess with, but in December 2008 two of them turned on each other in an ugly incident that was very similar to Gueye's clash with Keane at Old Trafford.
Stoke had been leading West Ham at Upton Park, but a poor clearance from captain Griffin inside his own box allowed Carlton Cole to equalise with a fine finish on the turn. That error led to the defender being berated by his own team-mate, striker Fuller, as the two exchanged words before the game had resumed. The flashpoint ended with Fuller planting a slap on his skipper and having a red card flashed in his direction after being restrained by his team-mates. Ugly stuff.
AdvertisementGetty ImagesEmmanuel Adebayor vs Nicklas Bendtner
Two former Arsenal players who were no strangers to controversy, Bendtner has admitted in an interview with that he "didn't get on at all" with fellow striker Adebayor at the best of times during their period as team-mates at the Emirates Stadium – but training ground tensions boiled over onto the pitch in January 2008.
With Arsene Wenger's side 4-1 down to arch-rivals Tottenham in the dying embers of their League Cup semi-final second leg at White Hart Lane – on their way to a crushing 5-1 defeat – there was a flare-up between the two frustrated centre-forwards. The pair started pushing and shoving each other off the ball, and the Dane was even left bloodied after Adebayor's head made contact with his nose.
To make matters even worse, Arsenal's fierce north London foes would go on to lift the trophy at Wembley the following month.
Getty Images SportHugo Lloris vs Son Heung-min
Tottenham legends Lloris and Son are still team-mates to this day, after the attacker followed the goalkeeper to LAFC in MLS, so presumably they put this incident behind them – but that didn't make in any less bizarre. Amid the Premier League's 'Project Restart' in July 2020 against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, the pair became embroiled in a furious half-time bust-up during a home clash with Everton.
Lloris took issue with Son's failure to track back, charging up to the South Korean on the half-time whistle and repeatedly shoving him and yelling at him. Amazon Prime's documentary, which followed Spurs at the time, showed that the dispute continued into the dressing room as the stopper screamed: "Make the run! One minute to go, we nearly concede a goal! Make the run for the team". Defender Serge Aurier and then-manager Jose Mourinho were then forced to keep the pair apart before tempers eventually simmered down.
Tottenham would ultimately hold on to their 1-0 lead to win, and Son and Lloris embraced after the game.
Getty ImagesFrank Ribery vs Arjen Robben
The iconic 'Robbery' partnership between revered wingers Robben and Ribery was notorious for terrorising defences across the Bundesliga and Europe, but on one high-stakes Champions League night the revered duo turned on each other in the Bayern Munich dressing room in an incident that the Dutchman later described as an 'explosion'.
Bayern trailed Real Madrid 2-1 at the break at the Santiago Bernabeu in the second leg of their semi-final in April 2012 after a brace from Cristiano Ronaldo and a Robben spot-kick, with the scores locked at 3-3 on aggregate. The legendary wide men had argued over who should take a free-kick on the stroke of half-time, and Ribery reportedly punched his team-mate as the spat erupted behind closed doors in the belly of the stadium.
"We've always got on really well and it exploded between us once," Robben said in an interview with five years later. "But the incident only made us stronger." Ribery added: "Sometimes these things happen in football."
