Despite being built like a tank and stronger than a rhinoceros, former Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Mousa Dembele was never your atypical hardman in football.
During his six-and-a-half years in North London, Spurs fans fell in love with the Belgian not for his physicality, but for his finesse, his upper-body strength, his capacity to glide across the pitch and, most of all, his class.
But the 33-year-old arguably lacked a bit of the latter in a game for Guangzhou R&F on Sunday.
Dembele, who left Tottenham in January of 2019, was sent off in the final minutes of a 2-0 defeat to Shenzhen.
One opposition player tried to waste time by keeping possession in the corner, but Dembele, with the ball available, attempted to put his laces through it and caught his opposite number.
Here’s how some Lilywhites fans reacted to the foul on Twitter:
Dembele probably didn’t try and make contact with the player, but with the ferocity at which he went for the ball, he would’ve known that it was a distinct possibility and, as one fan pointed out, it’s a potential leg-breaker if he strikes the wrong part of the limb.
Thankfully the player was fine, and even mustered the courage to confront Dembele, to his face, straight after the incident.
Despite some Tottenham fans condemning their former hero, it’ll take a lot more than this to make the same fanbase dislike him in any way, such is his legacy.
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