Joao Felix played just under an hour of his Premier League debut before being given his marching orders, but 11 players have been shown a red card sooner.
We’ve ranked them…
22) Clint Hill (For QPR v Bolton – 90+4)
QPR’s first Premier League game at Loftus Road for 25 years saw them concede four goals and culminated in Hill pushing his head into Martin Petrov’s chest and walking down the tunnel.
21) Laurent Koscielny (For Arsenal v Liverpool – 90+2)
It’s fair to say this was a bit of a fallow period for Liverpool and Arsenal as David N’Gog and Marouane Chamakh led the respective lines, but Koscielny would go on to make a further 352 appearances for the Gunners having been shown two yellow cards in stoppage time of his first.
20) Neil Kilkenny (For Birmingham v Liverpool – 84)
With five first-team midfielders absent, 19-year-old Kilkenny stepped in, pawed a ball away on the goal-line, got sent off, only for Djibril Cisse to score the resulting penalty and secure a point for Liverpool.
19) Tomas Repka (For West Ham v Middlesbrough – 80)
A true nutcase and we mean that in the nicest way possible, Repka was red-carded on his debut, suspended, then red-carded again in his next game. He was also jailed for fraud in 2019 after selling a car he didn’t actually own.
18) Gervinho (For Arsenal v Newcastle – 76)
He wasn’t the first and won’t be the last person to want to slap the stupid smile off Joey Barton’s face.
17) Aliou Cisse (For Birmingham v Arsenal – 74)
The Qatar World Cup’s best dressed was shown a second yellow card for a challenge on Ashley Cole which was later rescinded.
16) Kalifa Cisse (For Reading v Chelsea – 72)
“If I had not pulled my leg at the end, he could break my leg,” Claudio Pizarro insisted, after Steve Coppell claimed the Chelsea forward had “made a meal” of Cisse’s tackle. Without seeing the incident it’s clear from those two disparate interpretations that it both was a red card and not a leg-breaker.
15) Federico Fazio (For Tottenham v Manchester City – 67)
Fazio pulled Sergio Aguero back in the box to gift City their third penalty in a game of four spot-kicks, two of which were saved. Aguero scored all four goals for City.
14) Derek McInnes (For West Brom v Manchester United – 64)
Shown a yellow card in the 63rd minute of West Brom’s first ever Premier League game before a straight red in the 64th for a lunging tackle on Nicky Butt.
13) Bernardo Corradi (For Manchester City v Chelsea – 63)
It didn’t get much better for the striker, who scored his first goal in his 13th game, was sent off again in the Manchester derby and managed three goals all season before leaving the club.
12) Joao Felix (For Chelsea v Fulham – 58)
You can read all about it here, but in a nutshell he was the best player on the pitch until he wasn’t allowed to be on the pitch any longer. It will cost Chelsea gazillions.
11) Lee Hendrie (For Aston Villa v QPR – 57)
Something of a hot head it’s fair to say, this was the first of six red cards for Hendrie in his career.
10) Kagisho Dikgacoi (For Fulham v West Ham – 42)
The £300,000 signing from Golden Arrows lasted 42 minutes before losing his cool and pushing Scott Parker in the face. The referee initially showed both players yellow cards before consulting old school VAR (the linesman), who advised he give Dikgacoi his marching orders.
9) Brian Carey (For Leicester v Wimbledon – 37)
Despite being just the 37th minute, Carey was the third player to be shown a red card after David Lowe and, you guessed it, Vinnie Jones.
8) Samba Diakite (For QPR v Fulham – 33)
Diakite’s red was QPR’s fifth of the 2011/12 season.
7) Richard Rufus (Charlton v Newcastle – 25)
The one-club centre-back made 229 appearances for Charlton before turning his hand to scamming friends and family out of £15m through a dodgy pyramid scheme.
6) Jeroen Boere (For West Ham v Newcastle – 22)
Came on as a substitute in the 65th minute before exiting post-haste in the 87th for an elbow on Kevin Scott.
5) Jack Colback (For Sunderland v Wolves – 13)
Keen to make an impression as a 21-year-old coming off the bench in the Premier League, Colback was shown a yellow eight minutes into his debut before a second – with warnings in between – four minutes into stoppage time.
4) Michael Brown (For Manchester City v QPR – 12)
Another substitute sending-off, then 18, Brown later recalled being “extremely unlucky” to be shown a straight red after hauling Andy Impey down as the last man.
3) Steven Reid (For Blackburn v Bolton – 12)
Bolton against Blackburn, Sam Allardyce v Graeme Souness, Andy D’Urso refereeing, Brad Friedel, Lorenzo Amoruso, Tugay, Ivan Campo, Jay-Jay Okocha, goals from Youri Djorkaeff, Kevin Davies, Matt Jansen and Dwight Yorke. This is peak Premier League. Probably not for Reid though, who would make a further 191 top-flight appearances.
2) Iain Turner (For Everton v Blackburn – 9)
Comfortably the earliest debut red card in a game also weirdly happens to be the only example on this list where the team with ten men has come out on top. James Beattie scored the only goal of the game for Everton 21 minutes after Turner was sent off for a DOGSO having forgotten he can’t use his hands outside the box. A second goalkeeping debutant – John Ruddy – replaced him and kept Blackburn at bay.
1) Christian Negouai (For Manchester City v Everton – 3)
Kevin Keegan hailed Negouai as the “most exciting signing” he had ever made when he joined for £1.5m from RSC Charleroi in 2001. His three minutes at Goodison Park were his only minutes in the Premier League.