Cesc off as Chelsea beat Liverpool, but Fabregas isn’t the first to see red in a friendly

Matches between Chelsea and Liverpool have often proved fiery over the years, but midfielder Cesc Fabregas took things to a whole new level with a full-blooded challenge on Ragnar Klavan that earned him a straight red card in a pre-season friendly match in California.

Boss Antonio Conte described Fabregas as a “good boy” and said: “he is not a player to have this type of situation.”

But the Spain midfielder is certainly not the first person to get a little over-exuberant in a ‘friendly’.

Then-Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira received a straight red card after being adjudged to have swung an elbow at Inter Milan defender Marco Materazzi in Baltimore in 2010.

Wayne Rooney is sent off against FC Porto on the first day of the 2006 Amsterdam Tournament. AFP PHOTO / ANP PHOTO / FRED ERNST

Wayne Rooney and Paul Scholes were sent off when Manchester United played Porto at the Amsterdam Tournament in 2006. And at the same event three years previously both Steven Gerrard and Neil Mellor saw red when Liverpool took on Galatasaray.

More recently, in England’s final warm-up match before Euro 2016 defender Bruno Alves, of eventual champions Portugal, was dismissed for a head-high kick on striker Harry Kane.

And in January five players were sent off when Argentine rivals Boca Juniors and River Plate went head-to-head, quite literally in the case of Carlos Tevez and Jonathan Maidana with the latter dismissed for butting the former Manchester United and City star.