Nice of Coleman to ask Ramsey but I agree that making it public is a bit naive of him. As for the comments about naturalised citizens playing for a country they were not born in, Wales and England should be begging players like that to be included in their squad if they have the quality. is shawcross the type of player Wales needs? In my opinion no.
I wouldn't even want shawcross in the Scotland team, and were on a par with such giants of European football like san Marino haha.
Shawcross would be Wales's best centre-half by a distance. Why Ramsey would need to be consulted is beyond me. Bad tackles happen in football and in the very unlikely event that Ramsey would not want to play in the same team as Shawcross then it's incredibly unprofessional.
I think playing so recklessly that you put a man into hospital is pretty unprofessional. If someone put me into hospital, because of his professional incompetence, I don't think I would be a good enough Christian to have anything to do with him.
It was a bit reckless but you expect a few rough challenges in a game of football, though some Arsenal fans and staff seem to expect other teams to treat it as a non-contact sport for the special occasion of playing their team. It wasn't as if Shawcross went out to 'do' Ramsey and it was unfortunate that it resulted in such a bad injury but it was a challenge no different to many every week that don't cause serious harm and the ill-feeling between the clubs and the two players is a result of Wenger's inappropriate moaning imo.
If that is a "rough" challenge, I'd hate to see what a dangerous one would look like. It was unprofessional and had no place in the game of football. Wait until you have a kid playing and some other kid smashes his leg in two, and tells you, "It was just a rough challenge, I just wanted to be like my hero Ryan." Then let's see what you think of him. Sometimes football has to be bigger than supporting a thug just because he wears your club colours.
Well he doesn't wear my club's colours and I don't support him per se but appreciate that football is a man's game and people will sometimes get hurt. It was worthy of a red card and that should have been the end of it. Arsenal's bleating has done Stoke and Shawcross more good than harm in the matches since. If it was against any club but Arsenal it wouldn't be nearly as big an issue but for some reason we're all expected to tiptoe around them. Kids aren't that thick and that's a very poor argument. If they were going to copy anything from Shawcross it would be his ability to not play like a complete tart.
Football isn't a man's game, it's played by both sexes. What did harm to football, was idiots like you not coming out straight away and saying that the tackle had no place in football. Instead, when his manager quite rightly said that the tackle was disgusting, he was somehow wrong. I have absolutely no sympathy for Shawcross whatsoever. You don't play any sport in such a way that you put a person in hospital. No one wants to play a game that results in broken legs like that. There are a few sick people who enjoy gladatorial football, with lots of injuries because they think it makes them tough. You are probably one of those sick bastards. I hope next time you step onto the pitch some equally sick bastard does you. Then you can say how much you enjoy that part of the game from your hospital bed.
Classy. Wenger wasn't wrong for criticising the challenge but constantly harping on about it as if it were a pre-meditated, Roy Keane on Haaland style assault, is wrong. It's impossible not to play the game in a way where people might get hurt unless we make it non-contact and even then there are examples of broken legs and worse from no contact at all with another player. I'm not saying I have sympathy for Shawcross either, not that he's ever sought it, but I see no reason why he and Ramsey wouldn't be able to play in the same team. When I play I do so in a reasonably 'tough' manner but I don't go out to break legs and nor do just about any people especially pros. I have broken one person's leg with what was a very good but very hard challenge when playing as a goalkeeper and diving at a forward's feet in a 50:50. It wasn't pretty but such things happen. He knew it wasn't malicious and I was applauded for the tackle before the severity of the kid's injury was more obvious. It's a rough, contact sport, or at least it was before people like Wenger started their crusade to outlaw contact and I hope we never fully lose it. There's a balance between the football of the 70s and tippy-tappy can't tackle won't tackle nonsense and we're probably too far towards the latter as it is. If my leg was broken from an honest tackle, of course I'd be gutted personally but I wouldn't feel anger towards the other bloke.
Well, people like you are the reason that England will never be a factor in international football. Football is now played in England for a spectacle. The real problem is the mindset we install in our children at an early age. When you broke that player's leg, you were totally in the wrong. 50-50 or not. Unfortunately the game has become a spectacle where people want to see injuries and players displaying toughness. Those people really don't like watching football at all, they should really be following a sport like MMA or boxing. Until we get to the point where we are playing football, even if it isn't exactly the game we want to play or watch, them we will not be able to compete. Most of our best young players suffer career-ending, or career-limiting injures even before they are 15. Other players never develop real skills, because they have to kick the ball away as fast as they can to avoid those career ending, fair but hard, challenges. Arsenal had 3 or 4 broken legs last year, and that is playing against skilled professionals. If you saw the carnage that is happening at the younger levels with less skilled players who make more, poorer decisions than the pros, then you would not be so certain of your view. The laws of FIFA football are very very clear. The onus is on you as a player not to make any tackle with a force that might cause serious injury. There is absolutely no tackle that will break a goalkeepers leg that is legal under the FIFA laws. As I said, we in Britain may not want to play FIFA football, but that is the game we are pretending to play. It is for this reason that we will never be any good at it. We have utter contempt for it.
Ammaar, I'm not going to apologize. This isn't about being an Arsenal fan or about Ramsey and Shawcross, this is about how English football can improve. I referee and coach at the grass-roots level every day and I come into contact with people like Watford_R every day. They want to win a junior league game so badly that they tell their team to go in hard on players every single tackle. What they really mean is "Stop the skilled player from playing by injuring them." At that level a midfielder that carries the ball for any length of time, will face some 40-50 challenges per game and the chances are that at least half of them will be mistimed. Against a team really pushing their "hard but fair agenda" the chances of that player escaping injury in the game is virtually zero. It is absolutely ruining the game. It isn't an opinion. It is a fact. And it is why 95% of english players are crap at everything except breaking peoples legs. And I include Adams and Keown in that. Edit: I should add that it is getting so bad, we are seeing a player get carried off the field with a serious injury (will miss games) nearly every competitive game. Football just cant sustain that kind of violence and it's popularity is going to wane badly in England as a participation sport, unless we correct it.
I tend to agree with a lot of what TT is saying. Tackling should be a last resort, there should be no attempt at a tackle that is only 50-50. The FIFA rules of football state clearly: "if a player commits any of the following seven offences in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force: • kicks or attempts to kick an opponent • trips or attempts to trip an opponent • jumps at an opponent • charges an opponent • strikes or attempts to strike an opponent • pushes an opponent • tackles an opponent" Also an indirect free kick can be given when a player "plays in a dangerous manner". If you look at the likes of Barcelona, you don't see players of that calibre flying into tackles, do you? They win the ball by pressing on the opposition and forcing them into mistakes. Shawcross IS the worst example of a talentless player getting away with it because he is English and because the media love to stick up for anything that is against Arsenal. How many more legs does he need to break? Is it 2 or 3 different players now? How many more young players careers does he need to potentially end? However, he was punished at the time and we should let it go. It's the refs and the FA that allow players like Shawcross to get away with these sorts of dangerous tackles that need to change. If they book a player every time there is a dangerous tackle or give them lengthier bans then these thugs will soon learn that they actually need to play with a bit of skill instead.
What a load of bollocks. The guy's leg that I unintentionally broke was a result of me being stronger and bigger than him when our legs collided. It had nothing to do with malice- it was bad luck for him and I wanted it more, without doing anything against the rules, even the fluffy new rules aimed at making it a virtually non-contact sport. If I coached a team I wouldn't tell them to go in hard for every tackle. Sometimes going in hard, legally, is necessary which you seem unwilling to accept. Sometimes it does the skilled player good in the long run- not if his leg breaks of course- but if he can learn to ride some mistimed tackles that's no bad thing. 'Football just cant sustain that kind of violence and it's popularity is going to wane badly in England as a participation sport, unless we correct it'- it's the most popular league in the world because it's fast and competitive. You construe that as violence when it is not. Rugby and boxing are hugely popular sports in this country and far more violent than football. If anything, violence, not that football has much, increases popularity, just not the sort of popularity you wish to entertain.
Of course not everyone has that luxury, but surely that is the best example of how teams should strive to be? Maybe if we used their philosophy, we'd have less of our players having their legs broken?
Boxing and rugby are far far less violent than football. I have refereed rugby and, as a rule there are far far less serious injuries in rugby than in football. All boxers at the junior level wear protective headgear and at the amateur level it is much less violent than football. Honestly, I run into parents and coaches like you every day and I'm sick of dealing with it. I have seen a 13 year old with a broken leg that ended his participation in football altogether. The coach of the team that broke the guy's leg was arguing the red card I gave insisting that his player "Didn't mean to do it". I see fouls on the football field, that coaches consider "Hard but fair", that would lead to a dismissal in rugby or a disqualification in boxing. Running forearms to the head. Full speed body checks. Clothes-lines. Lunges from behind that had no chance of getting the ball. Some of them in the first minute of the game. "Just sending a message you know!" I get people like you screaming at me every single day because they seem to want kids to be seriously injured, some so that they walk with a limp for life, concussions that leave kids in a darkened room for months and I watch kids in tears, not only because they are in pain, but because they can't play any sport for months. It is heartbreaking. I may sound mad, but it is absolutely distressing to me, to see people like you pretending that it is somehow a good thing.
That's fair enough and different styles definitely make for better games. However, the point is that making tackles like Shawcross did that have the potential to badly injure another player should never be allowed or condoned. The Barca comparison was merely highlighting how the best team in the World get the ball without the aggressive tackling of lesser quality English defenders. Even the likes of Cashley Cole should be admired for his tackling ability - Without (to the best of my knowledge) ever badly injuring another player. If a ball is 50-50 the player should not go flying into the tackle as it is dangerous. This is what should be stopped. Not all tackling and not all contact, but we've all seen players go flying into tackles dangerously (even if they get the ball) and the English media applauding it. It should be a foul EVERY single time and a card given most of the time. It is irrelevant if a player gets the ball or not. The foul (as shown above) should be given if a tackle is 'careless, reckless or with excessive force'.
Frankly it's not my fault you deal with thick people every day or that you're sick of your job. There's a line in football and throwing elbows and the like cross it. A tackle can be hard but fair, potentially hurting the opponent, and still be an excellent tackle. It sounds as if you've had enough of the job and are becoming overly pedantic in your role as a ref. At that age football should act as a means of toughening these kids up. Obviously broken legs are too far but a bit of pain from a tackle and a few tears really isn't the end of the world
