"It goes with the idea that to stop Arsenal you have to kick Arsenal and that kind of thing was waiting to happen. Many people have got away with too many bad tackles. We've escaped a few times but it's just not acceptable. If that is football it's better to stop it.
Oh the irony. Ask John Terry just how many times Arsenal players have got away with bad tackles. Ask Nani what it's like to have William Gallas kick you when the ball is thirty yards away or when Flamini tries to kick you out of the ground, oh and incidentally Eduardo tried to separate Nani's lower leg from his thigh as well.
All that said, the Martin Taylor tackle on Eduardo looks horrible if you slow it down, it doesn't look particularly wonderful at normal speed. It was however good that Mr Magoo should later retract the statement he made suggesting that players should be banned for life for tackles like that. His line that you only have to kill one person to become a killer seemed a little bizarre as well.
The problem with Mr Wenger's initial reaction was interesting, from his position in the dug out he couldn't see how bad the tackle was, David Platt on SKY said that from his position it didn't look too bad initially. Wenger's reaction and subsequent statement wasn't about the tackle it was about the injury and what he was told by Gary Lewin and what he saw, a young players leg broken in two places. I'm not going to turn this around and try and exonerate Martin Taylor from all blame but I will say two things, firstly Eduardo's boot stuck in the ground and therefore he couldn't lift his left leg out of the way to avoid the right boot of Taylor and secondly Taylor isn't a dirty, cynical player, he's not even a young naive player, he's an experienced lumbering centre half who was beating by a younger man's skill.
I hope Eduardo makes a recovery and can play again, serious injuries like this can be overcome, look at Alan Smith, he is a very good player and somebody who would have been a star of this summers European Championships.
5 comments:
ha! I knew it would be an anti-Wenger stance. Wenger said what he thought and then correctly and non-ashamedly changed his statement - I wish they were all as honourable as Mr Magoo. Do you not see any truth in your first quoted statement (before you turned it in to a chance to slag AV that is) I can name 3 teams that make a habit of very dirty play as a norm (not the odd poor/bad/cynical tackle) when playing Arsenal.
Needless to say for the rest of the game a non freekick led to one goal, a non-penalty led to the other while Arsenal got a sure-penalty not given: I didn't see the game, this is what a life-long West Ham supporter told me this morning.
It wasn't anti-Wenger, just pointing out the hypocrisy. I wasn't going to post the first part because I wrote that before the retraction but I couldn't just say 'well done Arsene you corrected the wrong you did earlier' because I thought what he said at the end of the game was outrageous, plus the fact he repeated it in three different interviews. As I posted, his reaction wasn't to the tackle but to the injury.
I disagree about the first Birmingham goal, Flamini fouled McFadden twice, Arsenal should have had a penalty but they also got the once in a hundred times benefit of a foul on the opposition goalkeeper for their first goal, the Brum penalty wasn't a pen when looked at in slow motion but my natural instinct at normal speed was to shout penalty at the screen.
Poor old Billy Gallas, I hope they let him go home on the coach, although with all the steam pouring out of his ears at the end he could have propelled himself from New Street to Euston. It's not often you see a player attack an unarmed bmi hoarding, unless of course they are playing for a side sponsored by a rival airline!
LOL - perhaps Emirayes could use the footage.
I also don't agree with what AV said re banning for life, that was a silly thing to say from someone who doesn't say silly things.
As I said, I didn't see the game...but how can I expect hammers fans to agree on anything :-)
Not watching the Carling Cup final either, mainly as I'm in the bar for the Barelona and Madrid games tonight! Sounds like boring Chelski online.
Thought this write-up might interest you...it takes your and my impression to a further extreme:
You have teh Coatia captain saying he din't know such brutality still existed in football and you have Taylor's team mate saying he was sent off for the broken leg not for the actual challenge...he also said that Wenger's words were "so harsh" hehehe I bet he said more than that...HERE
It just shows how different opinions can be! I read last night that Nicholas Bendner said that when he was at Birmingham on loan Martin Taylor never tackled anybody - I think he meant fouled.
Reading Martin Samuel in the Times today made me feel a bit guilty, I think tackling is an art but there are instances when you think no. That said I don't want football to go the way of basketball and become non-contact.
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