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Andy Burnham jokingly predicted that Dominic Calvert-Lewin would score a hat-trick for Leeds United against the Mayor of Manchester's club, Everton, to continue a disappointing few days for him. Burnham alluded to being blocked from standing in the Gorton and Denton by-election by Labour's decision-making body, the National Executive Committee (NEC).

Calvert-Lewin decided to leave the team Burnham supports at the end of his contract last summer to join Leeds. That transfer only happened after both clubs had previously played this term on the opening weekend of the season.

Therefore, the match on Monday night was the first opportunity Calvert-Lewin had to face his former employers and return to Merseyside. The politician made his tongue-in-cheek comments an hour-and-a-half before kick-off.

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Burnham posted on X: "Given the weekend I've had, it feels very much like a Dominic Calvert-Lewin hat-trick is now incoming." The post was the Mayor of Manchester's first since sharing his disappointment at Sunday's decision by the NEC.

He said: "I am disappointed by today's NEC decision and concerned about its potential impact on the important elections ahead of us. To whoever is Labour's candidate and to our members in Manchester and Tameside: you will have my full support, and I will be there whenever you need me.

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"Tomorrow I return with full focus to my role as Mayor of GM, defending everything we have built in our city-region over many years. I decided to put myself forward to prevent the divisive politics of Reform from damaging that. We are stronger together, and let's stay that way.

"PS - The fact that the media was informed of the NEC decision before I was tells you everything you need to know about the way the Labour Party is being run these days. You would think that over 30 years of service would count for something, but sadly, not."

Burnham's only posts since then were a reply thanking someone for always being there for him and another reiterating that his statement was 100% true. He also responded to former Labour adviser Tom Baldwin's claim that his potential return to Westminster "does no one any good" by countering, "I'm not sure losing a by-election does us any good either, Tom."

Labour said in a statement: "The NEC believes that causing an unnecessary election for the position of Greater Manchester mayor would have a substantial and disproportionate impact on party campaign resources ahead of the local elections and elections to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd in May. Although the Party would be confident of retaining the mayoralty, the NEC could not put Labour's control of Greater Manchester at any risk."

Sir Keir Starmer is on the committee and voted in favour of blocking Burnham from standing. The Mayor of Manchester, becoming a member of Parliament again by winning the by-election, would have enabled him to challenge the Prime Minister for the leadership.

Starmer reiterated Labour's stance on Monday, saying: "Andy Burnham's doing a great job as the mayor of Manchester, but having an election for the mayor of Manchester when it's not necessary would divert our resources away from the [local] elections that we must have, that we must fight and win. And resources, whether that's money or people, need to be focused on the elections that we must have, not elections that we don't have to have, and that was the basis of the NEC decision."

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