Michael Keane, who saw his Everton teammate Idrissa Gay receive a red card for slapping him against Manchester United earlier this season, experienced yet another bizarre red card when he was sent off for pulling an opponent’s hair against Wolves. Keane’s night started well as he scored his third instinctive goal of the season to put the Blues ahead against a club bottom of the Premier League. However, Wolves had just achieved their first win of the season, scoring the equalizer with a goal from Matheus Mane.
And things got even worse for Everton when two players were sent off en route to a disappointing draw at home. Most of the crowd at Hill Dickinson Stadium, including referee Thomas Kirk, who was just playing his second game in the Premier League, were unaware of Keane’s attack in the aerial duel with Tolu Arokodea.
However, more than 320 miles away at Stockley Park, Chris Kavanagh, on duty at VAR, spotted the incident and instructed Kirk to show him the pitchside monitor. Mr Keene can be seen saying “Oh my God” as the footage is played, which was deemed an “act of violence” and he was immediately fired.
But if it was an intentional act, it was reckless. The same applied to Jack Grealish, who left the pitch after Keane with two quick yellow cards, leaving David Moyes’ side desperately enduring a draw with just nine players.
Everton manager Moyes was furious, calling the decision to give Keane a red card “ridiculous”. “It wasn’t violent, it wasn’t forced or intentional. So everything I said was that I shouldn’t have given the red card,” he said.
“I think it was a really poor decision to put him on the screen in the first place. (Marc) Cucurella got his hair pulled. An act of violence, an intentional act, that’s fine, but this was in the middle of a game, with the ball coming towards you. Unless you’ve played the game, you might not understand.”
“I was a centre-half and I can’t imagine jumping over a big centre-forward…’Oh, by the way, I’m going to jump over him and pull his hair at the same time.’
“I don’t know anyone on earth who’s good enough to think that while they’re jumping. I thought it was VAR, not some stupid call by the referee. I thought the stupid part came from VAR.”
“Anybody could grow their hair a little longer and have it pulled out. It’s crazy. It was a stupid decision. Everyone was frustrated, everyone was in disbelief.”
