'Doucoure subjected to some of the worst abuse we've seen'

EVERTON'S Abdoulaye Doucoure was subjected to "some of the worst outpourings of abuse" the Premier League has ever seen, reveals the English top flight's director of content protection Tim Cooper.

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The vile online messages were sent to the Blues midfielder after he celebrated James Tarkowski's last-gasp equaliser in front of Liverpool supporters in Goodison Park's final Merseyside Derby, with the 2-2 draw ensuring the hosts did not finish with a losing record at the ground in the fixture after over 130 years of facing their neighbours.

Doucoure picked up a post-match second yellow card for the incident giving him a one-match ban with Reds midfielder Curtis Jones, who piled in to remonstrate against him, also receiving a red card alongside Liverpool head coach Arne Slot and Sipke Hulshoff in separate incidents.

An article in The i paper states: "When Doucoure went back to the dressing room, he noticed his Instagram account had 'lit up'. There were, by his estimate, 'thousands' of direct messages spewing the worst, most vile sort of racism.

"And they just kept coming for days.

"There was crude text abuse but also a string of gifs and emojis of monkeys and bananas.