The Lost Art of Tackling - Gunflash 538

The following article was published in the March 2010 issue of Gunflash - The Official Arsenal Supporters' Club Fanzine. The latest issue for April 2010 is out now. 


Whatever the rest of 2009-2010 has in store for Arsenal, there is the sobering knowledge that Aaron Ramsey will not be part of it. The serious injury to the highly rated young Wales midfielder - he broke his tibia and fibula in the 3-1 victory at Stoke last month - has not only cast a giant shadow over Arsenal’s season but revived memories of similar injuries to Abou Diaby four years ago and Eduardo two years ago. 
           
The good news is that the injury is not career-threatening. The bad news is that Ramsey faces at least eight months out of action and that unless something is done to curb the kind of reckless tackle by Ryan Shawcross which caused the trauma, it is likely that another serious injury will happen sooner rather than later. These sort of challenges are a consequence of too many Premier League managers thinking Arsenal are a soft touch, especially away from home, and encouraging over-aggressive methods to combat the flair and artistry of the Gunners.
       
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has seen it all before. The tackle by Martin Taylor at Birmingham which caused so much distress to Eduardo, not to mention his team-mates, and the even worse foul by Sunderland’s Dan Smith on Diaby at the Stadium of Light which was made near the touchline and came about 30 seconds from the end of a game in which Arsenal were winning 3-0. In a season when Arsenal have been suffering from an abnormal amount of injuries, this was the cruellest blow of all. Full marks to the Arsenal players who, having been visibly dismayed by Ramsey’s injury, had the character to go on and win the match with two goals in stoppage time. Their resolve, togetherness and fighting spirit bodes well for the rest of the season. 
        
Apologists for Shawcross point out that he did not mean to hurt Ramsey and that in a contact sport like football accidents will sometimes occur. On the first point I’m sure they are right, but the unnecessary force of the Stoke’s defender’s challenge ensured that it was an accident waiting to happen. The announcement of Shawcross’s promotion to the England squad for the game against Egypt only minutes after the Stoke-Arsenal match had finished was particularly unfortunate timing. 
      
The Ramsey February horror story highlights the lost art of tackling. Too many of today’s players seem unable to distinguish between fair and hard and foul and dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, there were dirty players 20 and 30 years ago and most clubs had their “enforcer” or “hard man”. But I can’t remember any of them committing the sort of challenges we are seeing all too often these days - fouls which endanger players’ livelihoods.
          
Tackling is as much part of football as shooting, passing, dribbling and heading. Long may it remain so, for I would hate to see the game become a non-contact sport. However, there is a proper and improper way of executing it. Sol Campbell gave an example of the former only last month when his brilliantly timed tackle thwarted Porto striker Falcao as he was about to shoot from close range. However, youngsters would be well advised not to follow the example of Birmingham centre-back Liam Ridgewell. His spiteful two-footed lunge at Wigan teenager James McCarthy last month took out the player and also the corner flag which flew up into the face of a linesman, who was unable to continue and replaced in the second half by the fourth official. Incredibly, Ridgewell was not punished by the referee and the FA, perhaps more incredibly, dismissed reports that they would act retrospectively. Ridgewell was also involved in an incident at the Emirates last October when his shuddering challenge led to Theo Walcott hobbling off. He also got off scot-free on that occasion, so he’s riding his luck.  It’s time that Birmingham manager Alex McLeish had a quiet word with the former Aston Villa defender and told him to calm down.
          
The importance of firm but clean tackling cannot be overstated. If you get a shot, pass or header wrong at least you don’t risk causing damage to somebody else, but if you tackle without, in Wenger’s words, due care and attention then the result, as we have seen recently, can be disastrous. In some cases the punishment does not fit the crime. Alex Song missed Arsenal’s recent matches against Burnley and Hull because of an accumulation of bookings, yet this was only one game fewer than Shawcross was banned for his tackle on Ramsey, for which he was sent off. Incidentally, Song’s yellow card against Stoke was harsh.
       
Ironically, Robbie Savage, now plying his trade with Derby in the Championship, was the innocent party to one of the worst assaults I’ve seen in many years. Ironic because Savage has had more than his fair share of run-ins with referees in a long, turbulent career. The guilty man this time was Gorka Pintardo, of Swansea, in the match at Pride Park last month. Pintardo’s wretched two-footed tackle thankfully missed his target and predictably provoked a mass brawl. That man of many clubs, Steve Claridge, commenting on The Football League show, rightly suggested that a suspension of three months would have been far more appropriate than three weeks for a challenge that could have inflicted grave damage.
           
Kieran Gibbs must be cursing the fact that his broken metatarsal has ruled him out for the rest of the season just when England manager Fabio Capello has a problem with finding a World Cup replacement at left-back for the injured ex-Gunner Ashley Cole. With Manchester City’s Wayne Bridge reluctant to play in the same team as John Terry, Aston Villa’s Stephen Warnock unconvincing in the League Cup final defeat by Manchester United and Everton’s Leighton Baines only average when gaining his first cap against Egypt, Gibbs, had he been fit, may well have called into the squad.
       
It’s touch and go whether Walcott, Arsenal’s only other World Cup candidate, will make the party to South Africa. His hat-trick in England’s 4-1 win over Croatia in World Cup qualifying in the autumn of 2008 seems a long time ago now. Since then a succession of injuries and the lack of a regular 90 minutes at Arsenal have drained his confidence and belief. After his performance at Wembley against Egypt when he was too often on the periphery, one fears Walcott has fallen behind in the pecking order to Shaun Wright-Phillips, Aaron Lennon and David Beckham. The Arsenal supporters are willing him to show some of the form that persuaded Wenger to buy him from Southampton for £5 million four years ago and there were signs in the home victory over Burnley - not least a terrific individual goal - that he is at last emerging from his trough.