The reaction to the Eduardo injury in the English media has quite frankly beggared belief. I don't know how anyone can genuinely have any faith in its objectivity, when Martin Taylor's tackle is defended by so many 'experts' and pundits; compare and contrast this to the way that Eboue's tackle from last week was roundly called reckless and malicious, and a 'definite red card'.Eboue's tackle was idiotic and stupid, however it was never going to do anything more than graze Nani's thigh. Taylor's tackle was with a straight leg and studs up, and was a genuine leg breaker. Intent does not matter in these cases, if one goes into a tackle out of control in this fashion with a straight leg then one runs the risk of ending a fellow professionals career. Steve Bruce reckons:
"He would never, ever do anything malicious. He has mis-timed the tackle, and I've seen it. Some would say it is not even a yellow card."
The 'some' in 'some would say' are therefore cretinous halfwits that we would be better off without. While a Birmingham City club statement reads:
"But Martin Taylor is adamant there was no malicious intent in the tackle and he is deeply upset by the extent of Eduardo's injury. Having reviewed the incident, this (no malicious intent) is clearly the case."
I don't care whether Martin Taylor feels remorse, he should have thought of this before he went into a tackle completely out of control with a straight leg and studs up. It's like someone setting a building on fire, burning to death the people inside and then claiming there was no intent to kill the people as it was not known that the building was occupied.
Andy Gray, David Platt, Mark Lawrenson, Garth Crooks, Mickey Quinn and others have all tried to defend the tackle by claiming 'it was just clumsy', 'he's not that kind of player' or 'it wasn't malicious'. Radio morons like Terry Christian and the regressive Dj Spoony were happy to compare Taylor's tackle to Gallas' kick out at Nani the week before. It's hard to find words to describe this kind of illinformed verbal diarrhoea. These comments seem to echo exactly what happened when Andy Cole ended a young Australian's career a few years ago, with Andy Cole claiming:
"I don't have a malicious bone in my body....I have not spoken to Colosimo. Why should I? I went for the ball. I don't think I did anything wrong."
The media then leapt on some rather emotional post match comments made my Arsene Wenger in a completely unsympathetic and disrespectful manner, comments which he has since retracted. The malignant way in which the media have looked to excuse the tackle, while jumping on the victim's manager, has neatly revealed their overt bias for all to see.
English football needs to come out of the medieval age, a rather nasty undercurrent of xenophobia seems to emerge as a way of blaming foreigners for our failings, rather than taking any responsibility for them ourselves. Small minded bigots like Andy Gray are more comfortable living in a state of perpetual denial, than productively moving forward by learning from our own mistakes. Players with skill and technique have it rough in England, cloggers like Martin Taylor are produced by a system that favours thuggery and violence over technique and craft. It's no wonder the English game is so poor technically, but in the media's opinion it's all the fault of the foreigners, how they could do with a mirror.
Change should come from yesterday's horror show, change that outlaws this kind of violence that has no place on a football pitch. The FA's useless disciplinary system is in desperate need of a major overhaul, how can a tackle like Eboue's recieve the same punishement as Taylor's violent assault?
