2 … which was made sour by incidents on the field
On a day when there was a heartwarming scene of Gutierrez not only making his return after his recovery from cancer, but also given the captain’s armband, the ugly side of the game reared its head again. No, I am not talking about the terrible performance of the linesman Peter Kirkup, who incorrectly flagged for offside when Wayne Rooney was onside and did not give a penalty for a stonewall appeal for the most-obvious candidate for penalty to Newcastle.
I am talking about the antics of Jonny Evans and Papiss Cisse. For all the talk of two-footed tackles and diving, arguably the biggest crime on the pitch is spitting at an opponent and that is precisely what both players seemed to be to doing. In an off the ball incident that led to a free kick for Newcastle, both Evans and Cisse were involved in an incident that might even see them punished retrospectively. After Cisse’s unintentional stamp and then intentional kick out at Evans, the central defender seemed to spit, not at Cisse, but down at the ground beside him. While the Senegalese striker seemed to spit directly at Evans’ neck. By the letter of the law, both players, should have been sent off in an incident that is certain to be revisited and replayed plenty of times in the coming days.