Former Everton forward Kevin Mirallas sparked huge controversy when seemingly taking a penalty off of first-choice taker Leighton Baines in 2015, before proceeding to miss.
With a penalty awarded to Everton on the stroke of half-time during a goalless draw with West Brom at Goodison Park, Mirallas convinced Baines to give him the ball so he could test his luck against Ben Foster. Mirallas missed, and then didn’t step back out for the second half amid a cloud of controversy.
But while Gary Neville called it a “a despicable breach of team spirit” on Monday Night Football, Everton boss Roberto Martinez insisted it was “no big issue”. That’s despite substituting the Belgian at half-time, just a few minutes after the missed penalty.
Everton legend Leighton Baines was happy to give Mirallas penalty
“It was just part of football, but people didn’t understand what happened,” Mirallas explains to FourFourTwo. “I had scored against West Ham a few days before, and my confidence was high.
“Before the game, I asked Leighton if I could take a penalty if we got one, and he agreed. If I’d scored, nobody would have mentioned it. But if you miss, it becomes a big issue, especially when the team is struggling. I got injured soon afterwards and some people thought I was dropped because of the penalty. But that’s football.”
Mirallas kept his place in the starting XI for Everton’s next game, away at Crystal Palace. He played 68 minutes in a 1-0 away win, putting to bed any suggestions of disharmony within the squad.
Disharmony did begin to spread at Goodison Park a year after Ronald Koeman arrived as manager in 2016, however – at least for Mirallas.
Despite playing 37 times in all competitions for the Dutchman in 2016/17, and signing a deal in May 2017 that would have kept him at Everton until he was 32, Koeman froze Mirallas out of the squad. By January 2018, he was heading out on loan to Olympiakos, his former side.
“I signed a new three-year contract in 2017, thinking I might finish my career at Everton,” Mirallas highlights. “But, early in the season, I asked Koeman why I wasn’t playing in the Europa League and he gave no explanation. We started to argue.
“I was shocked. The chairman told me that the club wanted to keep me, but it was hard to stay. I eventually left on loan because I wanted to play in the World Cup.”
