There have been some jaw-dropping moments both on and off the pitch in the Premier League era.
Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer are back to discuss, alongside a very giddy Ian Wright on a subject he particularly enjoyed.
“When you are younger, you just love things going wrong,” he said. “This is my favourite top 10 and it is fantastic.”
To hear the MOTD team’s final lists, listen to the latest Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast or watch Match of the Day on Saturday 25 April on BBC One at 22:20 BST.
- Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast – Premier League best overseas players
- Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast – Premier League best goalkeepers
- Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast – Premier League’s best goalscorers
- Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast – Premier League’s best managers
January 1995: Cantona kung-fu kicks fan
Manchester United forward Eric Cantona receives a red card and then jumps into the stands to kung-fu kick a fan while walking off the pitch.
Lineker: “Eric Cantona. Extraordinary footballer, slightly eccentric bloke to put it mildly and he did the thing that footballers are tempted to do because of the abuse from supporters. Boy, did he exact revenge.
“It was in my early days of punditry and they came to me on the show that night. I was thinking, what am I going to say about this? I said something pathetic like, ‘oh it’s totally unacceptable’. You just could not believe what you were seeing.”
Wright: “We have all had stick but then you get something which cuts to your soul and whatever he said to Eric Cantona, it did.
“To have someone like Sir Alex Ferguson back you like he did and then welcome him back with open arms…”
Shearer: “He got sent off and put his collar down when he was walking off. Like everyone else, I had my eyes and mouth wide opening thinking, what am I looking at here? Then all the players came scrambling in and it was just chaos.”
April 1996: Keegan ‘will love it’ rant
Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan falls for Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson’s mind games in the 1995-96 title race.
Wright: “From the outside looking in, Newcastle and Manchester United were going at it hammer and tongs and the way Sir Alex Ferguson just threw comments… Kevin was doing the interview and you could see his head working but getting more and more angry.
“I fell on the floor when that happened. That is one of the greatest things I have seen on TV. You don’t see a manager lose it like that.”
Shearer: “Sir Alex Ferguson had got to him. Newcastle had a 12-point lead at the top of the table in February and Manchester United slowly but surely chipped away and you can imagine the pressure they were under. He fell for it hook, line and sinker in the interview – “he’s still got to go to Middlesbrough and get something”.
Lineker: “He just bit so badly.”
January 1998: Ketsbaia loses his temper
Georgian Temuri Ketsbaia repeatedly kicks the advertising boards after scoring a late winner for Newcastle against Bolton.
Shearer: “I was on the bench that day along with Temuri, Kenny Dalglish was manager and I was coming back from a long-term injury and he put me on before him. So Temuri was not happy anyway and had the right hump. He came on and I headed the ball back across for him to score. I looked across and saw him going absolutely berserk. He got his top off, started booting the advertising hoardings and tried to take his boots off too.
“He was slightly different, hard as nails. We went paintballing on a team bonding session once and he was on the opposite side, he crept up behind Aaron Hughes, pushed him on the floor and was pinging him shouting, ‘stay down, stay down’. You could hear Aaron screaming.”
Wright: “That moment for me is one you watch 10 times, I can’t watch it just the once.”
September 1998: Di Canio shoves referee Alcock
Sheffield Wednesday’s Paolo di Canio is sent off and shoves referee Alcock to the floor before leaving the pitch.
Wright: “I was at West Ham at the time and me and Neil Ruddock did it as our celebration after I scored. He went down in instalments, it is embarrassing. A grown man should not go on the floor for that push but he wanted the maximum amount of punishment to be given to Di Canio. Come on man.
“I was at West Ham with him and he would get away with murder. If any decisions went against him in training, he would just walk off. He would be speaking in Italian and his arms would be waving all over the place. He was so intent on winning even the five-a-side games.”
Lineker: “There is always something mildly amusing about a referee falling over or getting hit by the ball. This one was particularly funny.
Shearer: “He went down easily, didn’t he? The best part of the incident was when Nigel Winterburn went up to Paolo then flinched.”
September 2003: Arsenal players swarm Van Nistelrooy
Ruud van Nistelrooy misses a late penalty for Manchester United and is swarmed by Arsenal players.
Shearer: “No surprise that Martin Keown was involved in that incident. When Ruud missed the penalty you could tell something was going to go off, Martin jumped straight into him.”
Wright: “You want Martin Keown in your team, in training he would mark me on a daily basis. Once I left and Thierry Henry came, there were a few problems because he trains like he plays. It was about winning, nobody getting an inch on him and dominating who he played against.
“In that moment, you could tell how much more aggressive and in Man Utd’s faces Arsenal were. United did not come back at them like I thought they would. It was a tell-tale sign that the transition was happening.
“Arsenal players just descended into anarchy.”
February 2005: Keane and Vieira tunnel bust-up
Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira go head-to-head in the tunnel before Arsenal host Manchester United at Highbury.
Shearer: “You could see it, Roy was desperate to go onto the pitching saying, “get out there and we will see”. The number of times people have said they are going to take you out on the pitch or offered to fight you in the dressing room.
“Some of the stuff that was going on when I was a 17-18 year old kid at Southampton, there were proper fights in the dressing rooms, sometimes between players and their own manager.”
Wright: “It was the Keane-Vieira rivalry. I remember Patrick’s demeanour and intensity changing in training in the week leading up to the game against United. He went up a notch, a lot sharper. It was brilliant to watch.
“For the two players that they were, the incident in the tunnel was brilliant for those times of great players going at it. They were just winners.”
April 2005: Bowyer and Dyer fight
Newcastle team-mates Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer trade punches on the pitch during a game against Aston Villa.
Shearer: “This was one where I certainly lost it after the game in the dressing room. Two team-mates fighting, incredible. There were little bits of aggression shown in training in the lead up to the game between those two. There were some choice words said and they were fighting for the same place in the team a lot of the time.
“It was one of those days where we got battered by Aston Villa, we were already down to 10 men. There had been a couple of times where Kieron had not passed the ball to Lee and I could remember Lee shouting things at him. On the last occasion he did not pass it, I just saw them going together and thought I am not seeing this right. Then the referee sent them both off. Everyone was in disbelief.
“Back in the dressing room I go berserk and then manager Graeme Souness comes in and said, ‘if you two want to fight, I’ll fight both of you now. I’ll take you both on’. I know who my money would have been on.”
Wright: “Two team-mates, where you are at the point on the pitch on a Saturday, with the world looking and fighting, that is just unacceptable in any stretch of the imagination.”
October 2009: Bent goal deflects off beach ball
Sunderland striker Darren Bent scores a goal which deflects into the net via a beach ball that had been thrown onto the pitch.
Wright: “It is ridiculous how the referee did not disallow that goal.”
Shearer: “Bent ran away celebrating the goal, I would do the same.”
April 2013: Suarez bites Ivanovic
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez bites Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanonic on the arm after tangling in the box.
Wright: “He bit him, HE BIT HIM! He is a nibbler, he has the teeth for it. He can eat an apple through a letterbox. This is what happens when you have a kid at nursery who is a biter and you have to say to him, “NO. BITING!” No-one said that to Suarez because he did it three times. When you look at Ivanovic, he was screaming. It was weird and you don’t see it.”
Lineker: “I remember doing Match of the Day that night and it was just an extraordinary thing.”
March 2014: Pardew headbutts Meyler
Newcastle manager Alan Pardew headbutts David Meyler as the Hull midfielder attempts to retrieve the ball off the pitch.
Wright: “When you watch this one, I would not say it was a proper Scottish headbutt. It was a really strange one from Pardew, I think he really wanted to give him a headbutt but then realised where he was.”
Most bonkers Premier League moment
Rank your most bonkers Premier League moment
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