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When Jordan Pickford’s time as England and Everton’s eternal No 1 comes to its end, a career in peacekeeping, or failing that, manning the doors back in Sunderland, may await. As Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane, teammates let us recall, went for each other at Old Trafford in full hold-me-back, hold-me-back mode, in stepped Pickford’s strong hands. Too late, it turned out. By then, Tony Harrington, the referee, had reached for his red card. Harrington had seen Gueye slap Keane, and the PGMO (no L these days, all you pedants) doesn’t agree with that in the workplace.
All rather negligible, less the type of dry slap Frank Butcher used to threaten any EastEnders tormentors with than a playground, petulant clip, something and nothing. Still, the blow had landed, and so the video assistant could do little more than agree with Harrington’s call. Compared to Lee Bowyer v Kieron Dyer 2005, Graeme Le Saux v David Batty 1995 or even, in 1993, Steve McManaman taking one in the chops from Bruce Grobbelaar and landing one back, there hadn’t been too much in it. Though had Pickford, Wearside’s answer to Jane Fonda, not stepped in, it could have escalated. The red mist was at its thickest between Keane and Gueye once the decision had been taken. Thus, Gueye became the first Premier League player dismissed for clouting a teammate since Stoke’s Ricardo Fuller was red-carded for lamping Andy Griffin in 2008, a forgotten, underground classic of the genre.
