Gary Neville leaps to Harry Kane’s defence after Carragher calls him embarassing

While Jamie Carragher said that Harry Kane should be embarrassed for the way he hit the deck after being shoved in the face by Abdoulaye Doucoure, Gary Neville defended the Tottenham man, insisting that his actions were understandable. 

There has been plenty of criticism levelled at Kane over the past couple of days for the manner in which he went down after Doucoure put his arm in the striker’s face.

Danny Murphy accused the Tottenham man of ‘stitching up’ the Everton star and remarked that the England captain ’embarrassed himself’ (talkSPORT).

While discussing the incident on Monday, Neville sympathised with Kane, admitting that it can be quite unsettling when a player puts their hand in your eyes.

The former Man Utd man said on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football (as relayed by The Daily Mail): “There is no debate on the red card at all. Doucoure puts his hand up, the only debate is whether Harry Kane should go down.

“Harry Kane should never go to ground. But the only thing I’ve had before is when someone puts the clasp of their claw and it goes a little bit on your eye – it does shock you. That (demonstrating what Doucoure did) is very different to a hand in the face.”

Carragher insisted that he would never have gone down in the manner that Kane did and that he would not approve of his son doing that.

The former Liverpool man responded: “The debate isn’t about a red card and Harry Kane shouldn’t be going down like that. It can still be a red card by putting your hand in someone’s face.

“Doucoure is wrong and I am sure [Sean] Dyche will tell him that, but I wouldn’t go down there as a player. There is no way near enough to let you go down.

“If I done that on a pitch I’d be embarrassed and if I watched my son do that, yeah it might help his team win if the opposition are down to 10 men and it gives them an advantage, but when he got back in the car I would say, ‘what are you doing? Don’t ever do that again on a football pitch’.”

However, Neville pointed out that given what was at stake, Kane had to go down to ensure that Everton were reduced to ten men.

He added: “If Harry Kane stands up there, we are talking about Champions League football, if he stands up that might have been a yellow because it is deemed as a hand-off.

“Harry has gone down, whether he should have or not, it is to make sure Doucoure got sent off.

“It is a part of the game people don’t like but in our dressing room, if my forward [does that] we are there to win leagues, win games. You might call it cheating but you can’t put your hand in someone’s eye with your clasp like that.”

Spurs Web Opinion

I think what should be debated here is the larger question as to why referees do not call fouls or hand out bookings if players stay on their feet.

That is not just the case with incidents like these but also when it comes to penalty calls, which is why we see players going down in an exaggerated manner to bring the referee’s attention to a foul.

Related Topics