Comments on: Is it still acceptable to ‘rough up’ skillful players?

By: duduabego

duduabego — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:36:42 +0000

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.

By: duduabego

duduabego — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 15:08:46 +0000

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?

By: Josiah

Josiah — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 11:16:09 +0000

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?

By: MDH

MDH — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 08:02:12 +0000

Very well written, fully agree

By: Will D

Will D — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:43:16 +0000

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.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 05:53:21 +0000

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.

By: duduabego

duduabego — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:25:56 +0000

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?

By: iqnadirshah

iqnadirshah — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 02:39:13 +0000

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………………

By: SpiralArchitect

SpiralArchitect — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:40:36 +0000

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.

By: Ahmed Bilal

Ahmed Bilal — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 22:13:08 +0000

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).