Newcastle United defeated Hull City 4-1 Saturday, but the story that will make the headlines was Alan Pardew's headbutt of David Meyler that saw the Newcastle manager sent off. Here's the Vine that's making the rounds:
Obviously, Pardew shouldn't have headbutted the player. That's a statement that is usually understood, like the "you" in the sentence, "Don't headbutt other people." What the Vine doesn't show is Meyler's completely unnecessary shove of Pardew. It's a minor point, to be sure, but still one that needs to be made. Meyler was shown a yellow card, but honestly it could have been red. The corollary to "Managers should not headbutt players" is "Players shouldn't confront managers, much less shove them."
In any case, the incident has already overshadowed what should have been a fun day for Newcastle supporters. It's rare that this team scores 4 goals, and although at least half of them can be directly attributed to dreadful Hull defending, it's fun to score that many, especially when the team narrowly avoided having their worst scoreless streak in the Premier League era when Loic Remy tallied a goal in stoppage time the week prior.
There were encouraging signs. Tim Krul, despite giving away a goal in the first minute of the second half that never should have been, had an amazing double save earlier on. Moussa Sissoko was all over the place and scored a brace. Loic Remy and Luuk De Jong abused the Hull City back line. Cheik Tiote didn't let anything get through the middle.
Of course, we'll not spend much time talking about any of that this week, because the manager of a professional football club couldn't keep his cool and decided to headbutt another man. I'm not really looking forward to the media storm to come, where journalists rush to be the first to condemn Pardew to the gallows for what was ultimately a pretty weak coming together. Again, there's no excuse for his actions. But can we all agree not to act like he murdered a family of four in cold blood? Please?