Is it still acceptable to ‘rough up’ skillful players?
Hunter by name and nature
Discussing deliberate fouls on fellow professionals has become a bit taboo since Roy Keane’s admission about his premeditated knee-high tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland, but Bolton’s Kevin Nolan has broken the silence to say that he urged teammate Jlloyd Samuel to foul Theo Walcott during their match against Arsenal on Saturday.
Nolan said: “I said to Jlloyd Samuel, ‘Give him a little kick and see if he comes back at you’. We are in danger of losing that side - the roughing up of people.” It remains to be seen whether Nolan will face any action for his comments.
This sort of thing has always gone on in football, and particularly in British football. The typical defence to this sort of thing normally run along two broad lines. One is that football is a “contact sport” and, by implication, if you don’t want to get kicked then don’t play. The other defence revolves around playing to your strengths. Nobody would dare to ask Theo Walcott if he mind sprinting at 70 per cent to give Samuel a chance to tackle him cleanly, so why shouldn’t the defender take advantage of the fact that he is bigger and stronger than Walcott?
The rebuke to the latter argument is pretty obvious: Walcott’s pace doesn’t hurt anyone (at least, not unless they get their legs tangled up) and it will not end someone’s career. Undoubtedly there are players up and down the country applying these principles week-in, week-out at grassroots level, and by the same token there are players who were just a bit too good for the game they were playing in who get their leg broken every week.
I can sympathise with Nolan who, as an industrious midfielder not afraid to put his foot in, obviously feels this aspect of the game is dying out. But this is not what the majority of the public want from football matches in the 21st century. In the past, the likes of Norman Hunter and Ron Harris have carved cult reputations for themselves through their willingness to kick the proverbial seven shades out of opponents, but that is no longer the case. There is still a place for tackles, even hard tackles, but watching the best player on the field get kicked around the park does not appeal to your average football fan.
The star names in football at the moment - Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Lionel Messi - have that status because they are given the protection to show us what they are capable of, and football would be a duller sport if we didn’t get to see their skills.
Unfortunately this shocking admission will be buried under a cloud of Arsenal hatred. Nothing will happen.
Damn, I didn’t even know that Nolan said those things. I think that there’s a limit to how aggressive a team can be. I always loved to see my favorite midfielders like Keane, Gattuso and Hargreaves taking an opposition player down and winning the ball in the process without the Ref blowing for a foul and I think during Big Sam’s time at Bolton, he formed a squad that was built on aggressiveness. If you are up against a creative team that play good free flowing football like with the likes of Arsenal and United, playing aggressively can work to your advantage. Think of all those times Arsenal lost to Bolton. Think of last season when United lost to Bolton at Reebok Stadium.
Playing aggressively affects the opposition team mentally in that they begin to question whether they should continue to play that free flowing football if it means they’re going to get seven shades of shit kicked out of them. Even Mourinho built Chelsea on aggressiveness. It’s not like Essien, Makelele, Drogba, Terry, A.Hole, I mean A.Cole, J. Cole or Ballack are easy to push over.
You want to see a star who got the better of such tackles? Look no further than Maradona. It still amazes me how he managed to carve such a successful career despite all the hits he got at a club & international level. And he kept coming back for more & still dazzled us with his talent.
I got really angry when i read the comments Nolan made.
LB is right - Arsenal haters will make sure to twist this into a non-issue. Wenger will be called a pussy for wanting more protection for Walcott. Arsenal players will be called pansies for needing more protection, despite the talented displays they bring to the EPL.
Guess what England fans! Your next great hope IS Walcott. Not some foriegn player coming into your precious EPL & stunting the development of homegrown talent. At the very least he’s a shite sight better than some of the ’star’ players you have as members of your national ‘team’.
Its now in your own fucking self-interest to wake-up & DEMAND change.
Or do you want Walcott to end up like David Busst & Eduardo?
LB is right, the real issue will swept aside by the Arsenal-hating press. Like I said once earlier, we have enough evidence of illegal tackles in our squad (Pires, Diaby, Eduardo, and now Clichy). Already the Arsenal bashers are getting restless. You should have seen the difficulty with which the commentators on sky announced that Arsenal were top. Andy Gray already hates life…………..
Interesting to see Arsenal fans worried about aggressive tactics. There arent many teams who have had more red cards than Arsenal during Wengers reign. I dont remember gooners fans objecting to Viera etc leaving their foot in (to put it mildly). now they expect referees to protect their delicate little players. Football was always a physical game, fouls are given now if players look at the opposition the wrong way, our game isnt just for girls nowadays is it?
Wenger has always called for more protection for skilled players and I’m inclined to agree with him - not because ‘tricks’ win football but because flair is the sizzle that helps sell football on TV and to an extent fill the stadiums.
However, as Rob pointed out the game still is a contact sport and there’s a legitimate amount of force that you can use to win the ball without needing to cause permanent, long-term damage to your opponent. This allowance will lead to mistakes, definitely, but will it’s absence make things better?
I don’t think so - it would deny the defending side means to win the ball back and could encourage more simulation with players purposefully running into the opposition and then falling down.
As far as I see it, tackling in general gives some balance to the game. Having said that, post-game video reviews of key incidents by the match referee would help punish offending players much more effectively and fairly.
Dave Simpson -
I was waiting for someone like you to say something so predictably moronic. I’ve seen, read & heard the same argument countless times on TV, blogs & online articles.
Yeah Arsenal were reknowned for their hard play. Adams, Parlour, Vieira, Keown all hard men but at the same time very talented & skilled in their roles. Yes in those ‘heydays’ every team in the EPL were similar with their hardball tactics…blah, blah, blah ad nauseam. Got anything new to say? Forget the fact that we have won the team fairplay awards for 2 seasons in a row since Adams left.
But guess what? Arsenal have moved away from that style. You want to know why? Because Arsenal want to be better than that. Wenger wants to fundamentally change English football for the better, make the players more tactical in their play rather than resort to brute force approach.
Is it any fucking coincidence that England haven’t won any meaningful trophy before or since 1966? Is it so hard to believe that England are fundamentally lacking that strategic mentality that can make them great again? The English fans approach to the game is still stuck in the 30’s where it was perfectly acceptable for players to hack down opponents without so much as a raised eyebrow by the ref. This is why Italy, France, Spain & Germany are lightyears ahead of the English team. Sure they mix in the hard tackle every now & then. But for them tactics & skill are what win matches. It is the pure offensive approach. The English approach is just to prevent the opposition from scoring with hard tackles…then what?
Your comment is extremely narrowminded & stuck in past stereotypes. Hey, i’m sure if Wenger really wanted he’d just walk into the player’s dressing room & say, ‘Boys. Forget all that crap i said before. Just go out there & hurt the bastards!’. Forget that this is supposed to be the ‘Beautiful Game’. Just turn it into a mass fucking brawl like the Battle of Santiago or the Battle of Berne. My what memorable fucking matches they were!
My guess is the media will latch onto those comments & criticise him ten times more harshly than what they’ve done to Nolan…if they’re doing anything to him at all.
We have the players to do it. Want to see Adebayor or Bendtner or Toure or Gallas in full swing? Hell even players like Fabregas & Nasri (with his showdown against Barton) are capable of the hardstyle. They can do it. They WANT to do it. They’re just too damn disciplined to do it. And they get on with the proper business of playing football & leaving the rest of the crap to shitty teams like Bolton.
Ahmed -
Yes it is still a contact sport. But what makes me angry is the opposition player’s clear INTENT to harm. This is clearly visible from Nolan’s statment. He’s told his players, ‘Don’t go for the ball, go for their knees!’. To me that is indefensible. To me that is not football. To me that is bordering on assault, a criminal offense. The object of the game is to win the BALL, not to maim people. Skilled players can put the hard tackles in & win the ball without doing too much damage. I agree with post-game reviews. I think it should be done more often & as fairly as possible. I want Arsenal players to be subject to the same rules as everyone else. No room for bias. Maybe then we’ll really see who the better teams are.
Arsenal fans are paranoid
I don’t think Nolan told Jlloyd to go after Walcott’s knees, more like making a more physical tackle to see how Walcott would react.
If I was Wenger I’d be asking Toure and Gallas to be hard on Walcott now and then just to push him out of his comfort zone and see what he does.
I agree that players need to be protected, but saying that Nolan is a thug / champions the cause of thugs is ridiculous. I made it a point to read his weekly blog on BBC a couple of seasons back - he’s a decent fellow and definitely not the type to condone hurting the opposition.
And Spiral - this has nothing to do with ‘England’s international future. Simpson was just fishing, you fell for his pathetic bait.
Tackling is a much a skill as a step over and more of a skill than being able to run fast so should be applauded and respected.
That said deliberately hurting someone is another thing and along with professional fouls should be straight red cards as they are both ruining the game.
There needs to be some balance between flair and grit, effort and intensity are a way less talented teams can bridge the gap and with out them the Premiership would become even more predictable than it already is
i think being physical is acceptable to a point.hard tackles are a part of the game.but again,people can go too far.and just as i type this,i hear pogatetz has broken possebons leg….perfect example of going too far
Dave I was waiting for some one like you to start. But Spiral has written in whatever was in my mind, so that’s enough. Sure our former players were rough, but you know what, we made it an art, how many players of other teams got injured? We got red cards, so? The Bolton match was enough to prove that only we get red cards for tackles and not others. Viera, Adams, Keown et all could tackle, not just go with the boots raised for the opponent’s shin. That was art but what Davies did, what Taylor did was simply dastardly………
Ahmed
Yeah right, if you were Fergie, you would encourage players to go for Rooney’s shins, give me a break.
I guess you would even encourage other teams’ players also to toughen up your own players ha ha ha ……….
I think it’s ridiculous to imply that players get away with, or have any particular intention to INJURE opposition players. That being said, hard tackling and aggressive play have been, and always will be a part of the game. I completely agree with Andrew; tackling is just as much of a skill as any other in the game of football, and far from being looked down upon, those who are able to execute tackles successfully and legally should be, and are, respected. If a player is able to, in the process of going for the ball, and successfully winning the ball, cause any harm to the player he is tackling, it is more a question of the caution with which the injured player handles the ball, rather than excessive force used by the tackler. It is not difficult to avoid injury from opposition tackles, but unfortunately the current trend in football is towards smaller, more skilled players, and a looser, more free flowing style of play, which is bound to see its share of injuries, notwithstanding physical play from some of the game’s more traditionally physical players. The bottom line is that rules exist in the sport for a reason, and excessive force is punished with cards and disciplinary action. Contact is permitted in the act of tackling, provided a legitimate opportunity exists to win the ball. Obviously, then, any time a tackle is executed without warranting a card or foul, it is considered by referee’s discretion to be legal. If referee’s discretion is not enough for you to believe that a tackle is legal, it is likely that no amount of oversight or precedent will convince you of tackling’s legality and allowance by the rules of the sport. In that case, you should just stop being a colossal vag and learn to accept that sometimes your team’s players will be on the wrong side of physical play. Every team, and every player is guilty of excessive force every once in a while, and accusing any individual player or team of such an offense is unreasonably prejudicial. Suck it up and enjoy the game.
One, iqnadir, why bring Taylor into this? He got the red card and the ban, and even Wenger himself realised that it a late challenge and an unfortunate foot position for Eduardo at the time of the tackle (foot stuck into the ground) that caused the injury. That wasn’t a case of ‘deliberately’ going in to injure player, and in any case Taylor was punished. The system is flawed in that it allows poor tacklers to get away with murder, but then you take the system to task, not a defender who went in to win the ball and maybe jar Eduardo a little, not break him in 2.
Two, no, I would encourage any player to go after another player’s shins or knees or ankles. I would encourage Vidic to knock Welbeck over during the course of a practice game to see how Welbeck reacts (and how Vidic executes - if he’s committing yellow-card offenses then it’s no good). 3 years ago I would have encouraged Heinze to get in Ronaldo’s face in practice games.
Success on the pitch depends to an extent on a player’s composure. You get that composure through experience but also through good training by creating realistic match scenarios in practice games.
The game is tough, it’s not perfect and I would like to eliminate injuries as much as all Arsenal fans still angry over Eduardo’s injury, but extreme reactions (such as using Eduardo as a sympathy card whenever a hard tackle goes in against an Arsenal player) are uncalled for and won’t help anyone.
So, bottom line, ‘roughing up’ is still on for football, but we do need mandatory video reviews and stricter punishments for reckless challenges (which would include Taylor as well).
Bait or no bait, i said what i wanted to say. Call it catharsis if you will. Walcott IS England’s future & you said it yourself when you stated that Wenger & Capello have to nurture him carefully. That includes calling for protection from referees.
It is interesting to me that you keep calling Arsenal fans paranoid. Whether that’s a bait as well or not i don’t really care. But i’m just wondering - if it was Ronaldo & not Eduardo who had that injury when he was in good form, what would SAF & the legion of Utd fans be saying now? Still be celebrating the double trophy win? I think not. For a Utd fan when you think of it that way you might begin to understand how pissed off Arsenal fans were in losing a player like that when he was in full flow.
Hey i’m gonna use Eduardo’s example every time this comes up. Its not for sympathy, but to remind people that their own teams can get stuck in the same situation. With that collective realisation maybe we’ll start to see some of the changes that we’ve talked about here.
As for getting Toure/Gallas/Clichy to get stuck into Walcott during training - i don’t know about that. Sounds like a decent idea, but it would have to be done well or it would just result in more injuries.
Why shouldnt any Gooner bring in the Taylor episode? It was the natural continuation of encouraging substandard teams like Blackburn and Bolton and Birmingham to ‘play tough’. Because it was Arsenal, no one bothered. Wenger never ‘felt’ that was a mistake on his part. He screamed for a lifetime ban on Taylor which he later took back. As for Nolan’s admission, he was dumb enough to admit it aloud.
And Ahmed, that has to be the dumbest phrase from you, ‘foot stuck in the ground’, that is a new one and that is priceless………………
well as if pre-empting what will happen later in the day, rodrigo of man u now has a broken leg, now what? with all these bullshit talk of aggressive tackles. how do u even start determining whether a player has no malicious intent in a carrier threatening tackle? we are all human we can only judge by actions not by intention, cos the intention is known only to the player who orchestrated the tackle and probably God who sees the inside out. we can only give players the benefit of the doubt, we ve to wait and see what the english media will make of this, considering that porgatez is not english, i won’t be suprise if they start calling for his head……” taylor never intended”… give me a fucking break people, when are we gonna learn? until a player’s carrier is permanently ruined?
If Arsenal are really worried about the well being of their players on the pitch from these tackle assassins then i think they should sign Lorik Cana. i know he is probably too old for them, but i would not take out a player if i knew that Cana would be getting me back.
if your worried about being bullied, buy yourself an even bigger bully. There will either be some very ugly soccer or no bad tackles in fear of reciprocation.
Good call Andrew - I for one think its the club’s fault that fails to incorporate some measure of physical play into their strategy for the injury or mistreatment of their players on the pitch. It’s a part of the game and it always has been.
Very well written, fully agree
I find it amusing that there are comments here that Arsenal players being on the receiving end of illegal tackles is the fault of the club itself for choosing not to integrate a more physical aspect to the game. Give me a break. When Arsenal were a physical side, the media gives the club a tough time for being “thugs” on the pitch. Now that Arsenal have cleaned up their disciplinary record, it’s their fault that they are being “bullied”. One word, biased.
I agree that the physical aspect opf the game will always be around, and is good to a certain extent as it gives less technical players a chance to carve their own niche in the game. heck, the Arsenal players went to Bolton expecting a physical game as eveidenced in their pre-game comments. However, asking a teammate to kick an opponent a little is unacceptable no matter how nice a guy Nolan is. So he is nice, does that mean he can break the rules? Are we to condone the act of “kicking opponents around”. Be physical, use tough tackles, but within the limits set by the rules. Or must we wait until a career ending tackle to happen before we realise that it is time we did something about it?
the issue is not about arsenal its about all teams, why are people only looking @ this issue from the perspective of arsenal alone.it is absolutely very naive and short-sighted to look at it sorely from that perspective. yesterday it was a man u player that had his leg broken tomorrow might be a chelsea or a spurs player, who knows we don’t pray for it. tackles must not be jettisoned out of the game i agree, but if as some have argue that its a skill then those who tackle must be skilled at it, just as those who dribble are. if u tackle and u leave another with a broken leg and its a skill then u have not yet perfected it so therefore u pay for it. if u win the ball with minimal or no contact to the player u tackle that makes u a skilled tackler. ferguson is already shouting blue murder b/cos of yesterday’s tackle on rodrigo and he is right. so its not just about arsenal or man u, unless those who argue that way are saying that the other teams don’t have skillful players, that will be insulting the ability of other clubs, don’t u think?
skysports just reported that rodrigo’s leg is not broken, he is lucky and its goodnews, we however wish him a speedy recovery. others in his shoes were not that lucky.