Five of the best Premier League player rivalries

Manchester City and Arsenal is a rivalry beginning to simmer in the Premier League, as the two teams jostle for position at the top end of the table.

At the centre of their title-deciding tussles has been Erling Haaland and Gabriel Magalhães, a direct duel that has added some spice to the encounters.

After John Stones’ last-gasp equaliser for Manchester City at the weekend, Haaland ran to grab the loose ball from the net before throwing it against the back of Gabriel’s head. It was hardly vicious but has certainly stoked the flame of their rising rivalry.

The two aren’t the first opposition players to rile each other up and we’ve decided to look back at five of the best Premier League player rivalries.

Five of the best Premier League player rivalries

Peter Schmeichel v Ian Wright

Ian Wright admitted he ‘genuinely hated’ playing against Peter Schmeichel, while an accusation of racist abuse from the latter towards Wright lit the touch paper for their feud.

As Arsenal and Manchester United competed for supremacy in the Premier League, Wright’s red mist descended during one particular clash. In a heated encounter during the 1996/97 season, Wright launched himself two-footed into Schmeichel as he ran in on goal, despite being flagged for offside.

Embed from Getty Images

“I didn’t try to snap him, all I did in that particular incident was jump on the ball,” Wright told the Match of the Day podcast.

“I was a little bit wound up at the time, Peter said a couple of things I didn’t find very nice – a couple of unsavoury things. We had an altercation at Old Trafford, which led to this game a couple of months later. In the first half of that game, we went in for a challenge that was so venomous that we actually burst the ball.

“The funny thing is, the tackle that everyone sees, the whistle had already gone and I just didn’t stop. When you look at it, you can see that the game had stopped but we were both running for it, the red mist was already there. “His leg was out, I saw the ball and I just jumped on the ball, two-footed. They said it was the tackle that shamed football – when I look back at it, it’s quite an embarrassing thing to see.”

Roy Keane vs Alf Inge Haaland

Perhaps no Premier League rivalry has had such a volatile flash point.

Roy Keane confessed he had ‘waited long enough’ for retaliation on Alf Inge Haaland. The Irishman had not forgotten his clash with Haaland four years earlier when the Leeds player ‘sneered’ over Keane, who had sustained an ACL injury at Elland Road.

In April 2001, Keane exacted his revenge. In the 86th minute of a Manchester Derby, a knee-high challenge on Haaland, then of Manchester City, sent the midfielder somersaulting to the Old Trafford turf. It was an inexcusable tackle, made more harrowing by Keane’s comments in his 2002 autobiography suggesting that it was pre-meditated.

Embed from Getty Images

“I’d waited long enough. I f*cking hit him hard,” Keane wrote.

“The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***. And don’t ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries.”

Keane was fined £5,000 at the time and given a three-match suspension, but the comments a year later saw him fined another £150,000 and banned for a further five matches.

Roy Keane vs Patrick Vieira

A second inclusion for Keane, in the rivalry of the Premier League era.

Manchester United and Arsenal remains the defining conflict of the Premier League period, two titans of the game who shared the title in eight straight seasons across the turn of the millennium. Their contests were ferocious, high on quality and rarely short of drama, with the respective captains the commanders on the battlefield.

The greatest rivals take each other to new heights and Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane certainly did that, each forced to raise their own level, to lead without fear, and to be uncompromising in their direct duel. The league hasn’t seen a spectacle like it since.

Jamie Carragher vs El Hadji Diouf

El Hadji Diouf is not remembered that fondly at Liverpool.

The Senegalese striker cost a pretty penny, scored just three league goals, soured the club’s reputation by spitting at opposition fans, and waged a war against two club legends.

Yep, that’ll do it.

“The worst [team-mate I had] has to be El Hadji Diouf,” Carragher said of Diouf.

“Actually, I quite enjoyed playing against him as you could kick him then – can’t kick your own players.”

Diouf, hardly a shrinking violet himself, has enjoyed his own war-of-words with the Liverpool legend, admitting Carragher’s career was built on his birthplace – and not ability.

“Jamie Carragher, he has two left feet. He’s a right-footed player who has two left feet and he played because he was a Scouser,” he told BeIn Sports.

Patrice Evra vs Luis Suarez

An awful episode in which few came out in a positive light. Patrice Evra’s accusation that Luis Suarez racially abused him took English football’s fiercest rivalry into murky waters.

Suarez proclaimed his innocence, Evra insisted otherwise, while Liverpool’s role in supporting their striker was rightly condemned. As a result of the incident, Suarez was banned for eight matches and given a £40,000 fine.

Things continued, however, as Suarez refused to shake Evra’s hand pre-match in the following fixture between the teams. He later apologised for that incident, though not for the initial allegation. He said in his 2014 autobiography that Evra had contributed to his character being ‘tarnished forever’.

Evra was keen to have his say and exuberantly celebrated in front of Suarez during a Manchester United win over Liverpool at Old Trafford, before mocking the Uruguayan by biting a severed arm during the club’s title celebrations – a note to Suarez’s previous bans for biting.

Read – Premier League Team of the Week – Jackson and Diaz shine

See more – Premier League weekend: Five things we learned

Follow The Football Faithful on Social Media:

Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | TikTok