David Moyes on Idrissa Gueye red card: ‘I quite like my players fighting each other’ as Everton beat Manchester United at Old Trafford
By Tom Masters
Updated 24/11/2025 at 23:35 GMT
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Everton manager David Moyes has had his say on the Idrissa Gueye red card and said "I quite like my players fighting each other" after a 1-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. The Toffees started the game excellently and were the better of the two teams when both had 11 men, but Gueye then struck Michael Keane and was sent off, leaving Everton to valiantly fight on with 10 men.
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Everton manager David Moyes gave his views on Idrissa Gueye's red card and said "I quite like my players fighting each other" after a 1-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Gueye was sent off 13 minutes into the game for slapping team-mate Michael Keane in the face after the pair got into a heated debate about a misplaced pass which Bruno Fernandes almost scored from.
Fortunately for Gueye, Everton went on to take the three points despite being down to 10 men for almost the entire match, after Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s excellent strike and Jordan Pickford’s inspirational performance in goal.
It was only the third time in the history of the Premier League there had been an incident with two team-mates fighting each other which resulted in a red card, after Ricardo Fuller was sent off for Stoke City in December 2008 when striking captain Andy Griffin and the infamous incident between Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer for Newcastle United in 2005.
Moyes, though, was upbeat about the result, having beaten his former employers at Old Trafford, in a result that lifts them above city rivals Liverpool in the Premier League table and saw the passion showed by both players as a positive.
He told Sky Sports: "I’m surprised, I think if nothing happened, I don’t think anybody in the stadium would have been surprised, I thought the referee could have maybe taken a little bit longer to think about it.
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Idrissa Gueye is sent off by referee Tony Harrington after clashing with Michael Keane.
Image credit: Getty Images
"I am being told the rules of the game means that if you slap your own player or you lift an arm in some way you could be in trouble, but there is another side of it.
"I quite like my players fighting each other and getting annoyed at each other because of a bad ball or something.
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"You want a winning team and you want that resilience and the toughness which got us the result, then you have to have players who are going to react that way and I am disappointed we got the sending off, but those of us who have been footballers will tell you, you will quite often get annoyed at your team-mates."
As reported on the Sky Sports broadcast and confirmed by Opta, Everton were the 47th team to go to Old Trafford and have a player sent off, but the first to win.
The 10 men of Everton made themselves difficult to beat, with solid performances again from centre back pair Keane and James Tarkowski, as well as an inspirational performance from Pickford in goal.
There is one man in particular that Gueye can be forever grateful for and that is Dewsbury-Hall, who was delighted with the performance of Everton.
"It was just a moment of madness," he said of the incident.
"It was obviously avoidable, all I can say is Idrissa apologised to us all at half-time and said his piece - that's all he can do and we move on from it.
"The reaction from the lads after it was unbelievable, top tier. We could've easily crumbled, gone in on ourselves and lost the game comfortably, but it probably made us grow even more as a team.
"The manager just said he would deal with the situation another time and it was just about keeping to the plan that we had. He just wanted us to continue what we were doing and focus on the things we can change."
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