Kinky-Tike
An Isak goal? Check.
A game that for long stretches looked embarrassingly like high-school football? Oh, yeah…Check.
A man-of-the-match, taking the game and owning it, performance from Chiesa? Darn tootin’ it was.
An unfortunate, stretcher-necessitating injury to cap an otherwise very good performance from debutant Leoni? Sadly, check.
A goal coupled with a couple moments of youthful exuberance from Ekitike?
Right, about that.
Look, I understand a young player losing their head. If anything, Hugo has so far this season shown remarkable composure for his age, staying out of trouble in many situations in which, say, Darwin Nunez would have earned himself a booking or worse. But today we got a reminder that he is still in his formation period. First came that ridiculous yellow for throwing the ball up in the air. I’m not sure all refs would have given a yellow for it, since he didn’t exactly throw it away, but Thomas Bramall did. He did the same much later in the game, this time to Ryan Manning, for the same kind of angry display, so at least the ref was consistent.
The problem was, when Ekitike scored what proved to be the winning goal (which, for what it’s worth, looked marginally offside) and wanted to celebrate in front of the Kop, he seemed to have forgotten that prior infraction, and took his shirt off. Well, can’t make the sponsors unhappy. The logo must be shown during goal celebrations, and the yellow came out. Ekitike was of course prepared for that, but first Frimpong went over to ask him what the hell he was thinking and Ekitike looked dumbfounded when the inevitable red followed, as if he was asking “wait, how many yellow have I got?”
It was almost kinky, the kind of moment that happens to young players, and I’m sure he will learn from it and it won’t happen to him ever again.
When it ends up costing nothing, it’s the best lesson of all.
Even Arne Slot seemed to snicker about it on the sidelines before adopting a more appropriate, serious look of admonishment.
On to the next round. I sure do hope Leoni’s painful, stretchered departure from the stadium was just a precaution…and boy is that missed Guehi transfer starting to make me uncomfortable.