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.
