Monday 13 September 2010

Paul Robinson and the media blackout



Here is the video of 'that' tackle by Bolton's Paul Robinson. I thought it was a clear red card at first viewing and it only looks worse on the replays. If ever a tackle was designed to break a leg then this is it. A couple of chaps at the stadium sitting behind me felt it was a fair tackle, if they haven't changed their minds having studied in it more detail then they need their heads examined.

Owen Coyle should stop whinging about the referee, overall Bolton got a pretty good deal. The ref missed two stonewall penalties for us, he could also have easily sent off at least two more Bolton players, if not more. The sending off wasn't a turning point, it was an inevitability given the way Bolton were jumping into tackles.

Shocking straight legged tackle, player taken off with potentially nasty injury, one would think that this would make the headlines, at least make the news. So why the strange blackout in certain parts of the media following Diaby's premature exit from the game? The BBC have been appalling, the incident wasn't even on MOTD's highlights and wasn't even mentioned in a match report. Given the the BBC is a public broadcaster they are obliged to listen to complaints, so please join me in taking a couple of minutes to fill out this quick complaints form.

Briefly to the Karl Henry tackle on Bobby Zamora that has resulted in a potentially career threatening injury. This was nowhere near as bad as the Robinson tackle of course, but it has been widely reported as being a fair clean tackle, this is not the case. Henry makes the tackle from behind, this means that he cannot safely win the ball with sandwiching Zamora's right leg between his legs. It is a definite foul, probably a yellow card, you simply cannot make a safe tackle from behind and the so called media experts should know this.

To be fair several newspapers such as the Daily Mail and the Sun have covered this and given it due attention, the Mail's match report was remarkably spot on I have to admit. Incidentally for those of you who love statistics, Arsenal and Bolton were apparently level on 11 fouls each, Bolton had the same number of yellows and one red, what a great example of how useless the statistics are for showing how dirty a side is, they do not reflect things at all.

If the FA gave a monkeys for the safety of players and the future of the English game, then they would be charging Paul Robinson for his assault on Diaby that was missed by the referee and linesman. These kind of tackles must be outlawed (post scriptum excellent Arseblogger piece). Diaby has been injured as a direct result of this reckless tackling, Jack Wilshere was also rather bruised having come off early after a similar mauling, we are getting regular injuries directly as a result of this kind of dangerous play. Kevin Davies demonstrates precisely the kind of stupid logic that is often used to justify this kind of dangerous play, there simply is not justification for it I'm afraid. Breaking people's legs is not part of football I'm afraid.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spot on, mate.

Anonymous said...

MOTD needs a thorough shake up. The present team is an embarrassment, they're complacent, lazy and arrogant. I can't watch it anymore for fear of damaging my TV. I think the license fee payers deserve a lot better.

Barnet Gooner said...

top secret behind the scenes footage from the Bolton/ Stoke/ Wolves etc (delete as applicable) training ground:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2CSpNze5Q

1979gooner said...

anon,

i would be interested to know what kind of things the presenters are encouraged to say, i bet they are hinted in a certain direction at times

BarnetGooner,

hilarious, you'd need more than straw though against the likes of Shawcross and Robinson!

Anonymous said...

From memory, the current head of BBC's football department is a spud? Presumably he's not been fired.
Gf60

1979gooner said...

who is that?

Anonymous said...

In 08/09 season (if im not mistaken),in a 'wrestling' match againts stoke 'rubbish' city,
Doggy Delap made a tackle from behind which put Fabregas on the sideline for several weeks, and he only got a yellow card for that. Later on in the same match, when the ball was going out of play and Ebou was covering it (for Arsenal throw-in), Son-of-a-bitch Delap made a tackle from behind AGAIN when the ball was already outside the field, and the son-of-a-pig ref acted like nothing happened and gave no nothing to Delap. AND I was waiting for BBC to make a report on that in MOTD, but they were just like happy that Arsenal was beaten by a better(?) side at Emirates.

Varun said...

Lets be clear here. The tackles which we see in football nowadays are nowhere near as bad as they used to be earlier.

Lets do one thing, think of the number of players you can pick out whose careers have been ended by a bad tackle, in the past few years. You will find the near alarmingly low. The cases of Eduardo where the player does not come back to his best will happen in any sport.

Teams like Bolton, have nowhere close to the flair that Arsenal possess and if you want to see a fairy tale game of clean football, just buy the DVD of the Spanish. The only way teams can hope to get results against those with far more creativity will be playing a hard, tough game.

Lets not try and make this into cricket, where every benefit of the doubt and rule change favours the batsmen. Defending is an art and can be quite brutal at times. Arsenal fans should just look at the days of Viera, Adams and Dixon before ranting over and over again.

Uncle Mike said...

Vieira? Adams? Dixon? Name ONE player whose career was either ended or severely curtailed by any of them. You can throw in Peter Storey as well.

I once asked the board at Arsenal Mania who they thought was the meanest Arsenal player ever. Expecting to see a bunch of votes for Vieira or Adams, the first answer I got was Storey and nobody disputed it. But did he ever put a guy out for all or most of a season? I know he nailed Stoke, not with a nasty tackle but with an amazing goal in the 1971 FA Cup Semi. Gordon Banks couldn't stop that one.

1979gooner said...

Utter nonsense Varun, utter utter nonsense.

The problem is that the art of tackling properly is being lost, there are some players now who simply do not tackle with the proper technique and risk injuring the opposition as a result.

Uncle Mike is spot on. That old guard of Dixon, Adams et al were tough but generally fair, they had the proper technique. I will freely admit that Vieira occasionally lost his cool and did a bad tackle, but this was still pretty rare.

Under Wenger's reign Arsenal have never been a dirty side, they did get a lot of cards at one point but this was mainly because they retaliated against the likes of Bolton/Blackburn/etc.

Varun, another of your points is also utter nonsense.

There are much better ways for lesser sides to beat the better sides, take Fulham for example under Hosgson, they were one of the best sides and hardest to play against, but they were very very fair. They worked hard, pressed hard and played as a team.

It is just plain wrong to say that these teams have no option, they have a clear choice, they have taken the rather low choice.

Good defending is not brutal, it is not dangerous and it is not violent. You're just so way off it's not true.

Anonymous said...

Varun,
I think I can sum up your comment - they're better than us so we'll kick them. There is a definite difference between playing solid, disruptive game against better opposition and going out to kick and injure the opposition. I feel that Blackburn in the Arse's last league match played within the spirit ofthe game, they may have tried to longball/throw us into submission but I can't recall any of Fat Sam's boys going into any reckless or dangerous challenges and were unlucky to have been beaten. Bolton however were unlucky to have Cahill sent off I feel as, whilst it was reckless, I don't believe there was any 'excessive force' which is the difference between a yellow and a straight red. Robinson and Davies however should have walked due to the excessive force in the former's reckless challenge on Diaby and the latter's three bookable challenge.

Anonymous said...

"Lets do one thing, think of the number of players you can pick out whose careers have been ended by a bad tackle, in the past few years. You will find the near alarmingly low."

Anyone who describes a lack of career threatening injuries as 'alarming' is a sadist.

Varun, you worry me.

Uncle Mike said...

1979 is right about Fulham under Hodgson. They drove us crazy sometimes. Remember January (I think) 2009? They played us to a 0-0 draw, and we had no fight, and the Emirates crowd booed the Gunners off the pitch? Fulham didn't kick, slash, batter or even park the bus. They defended. They shut down.

If they had just one really good scorer these last 3 years or so (better than Zamora, Duff or Dempsey), they just might be in the Champions League now.

And now Mark Hughes is their manager. Bloody hell.

Anonymous said...

He was going for the ball and missed. Simple. There was no malice in this tackle, that is why there was no media coverage. It was a foul, but nothing more. Arsenal fans need to get over yourselves.

1979gooner said...

Anonymous 0752

Your comments display a rank lack of understanding of tackling and football.

The ball is irrelevant.

If one tackles with a straight leg, over the top (as Robinson) or through the ball, with studs up and out of control (like Robinson), then it's a very dangerous way to tackle.

It was a clear red card offence irrelevant of the ball.

The reason Robinson had to do this was that he was caught slightly off Diaby, he had to be dangerous to get the ball, he should not have made a tackle because it had to be reckless.

Your comments demonstrate the problem that many people have in understanding some real basic concepts about tackling.

Malice? what does this mean, again it's an irrelevance used by someone to justify the unjustifiable.

Going in with a straight leg and studs up in this manner is by definiton deeply reckless and very dangerous. By definition it's malicious.

Whether this is subconscious or a conscious decision, who knows? Anyway it's irrelevant because the very simple point that you clearly fail to grasp is that Diaby's shin is in great danger whatever is going through Robinson's head, frankly I don't give a sh*t what Robinson is thinking, it's irrelevant, his action is completely reckless and it merits a red card. Simple. If you can't grasp this then I fear for you.