Last week's derby FA Cup tie had lots of talking points. From Virgil Van Dijk's debut winner, the contentious Lallana penalty, the callback from the league game with a contentious penalty going in the opposite direction, Mason Holgate shoving Roberto Firmino over the advertising hoarding into the crowd going completely unpunished by referee Bobby Madley leading of course to the darker element that's hung over the fixture: Holgate accusing Firmino of using racist language against him.
There is still no decision made on that situation but Holgate's complaints seem to have opened up an unsavoury elements of his own past. A history of using homophobic language during Twitter exchanges.
The Everton defender has since deleted the Tweets but, as the general rule goes, once something appears on the internet it can never really be deleted. The Tweets were sent from his account back in 2012 and 2013 but they could see the 21 year old face a lengthy ban. He is now under investigation from the FA after the incident was highlighted following the Firmino bust up.
It was first believed that Holgate had deleted his Twitter following the Firmino clash and abuse he was receiving from Liverpool fans. The offensive tweets sent by the player contained the words "faggot", "fag" and "batty".
There is precedent in this kind of a case, for example Watford's Andre Gray. In 2016 Grey was suspended from playing for four matches whilst playing for Burley when he was found guilty of six aggravated breaches of FA rules for homophobic comments made on social media.
The FA continue to investigate the situation from last Friday night's game at Anfield, with no decision made yet on Firmino's alleged racist language.
