Tackling and the point of no return

According to Robbie Savage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21823415

First things first, it was an awful challenge by Callum McManaman that deserves some retrospective punishment.
I expect it will be followed up but the calls for him to get a five, six, or seven-game ban are nonsense. It is a red-card tackle that the referee has missed so it should be a three-game suspension.

McManaman will learn from it and that should be the end of it - at the moment I feel a bit sorry for him, although clearly I wish the young boy Haidara well too and hopefully he is not badly injured.

But, speaking as someone who made my living out of tackling, I understand how it happened.

I know that as soon as McManaman committed himself to that challenge then there was no way he could pull out of it.

You sometimes have a split-second to decide whether to make a tackle and, if it was for a 50-50 ball like that one, then in my mind I would be thinking if anyone's getting hurt here, then it's not me. Most of the time, the other player is thinking the same.

So I would go in as hard as I could to protect myself but my aims were always to win the ball and not get hurt. If you pull out, or go in tentatively, then it is you who gets hurt.

It is a bit like a plane taking off, because there is a point of no return. Once you are past that, you know that if you have got it wrong then the outcome can be nasty.

With the speed of players these days, the pace of the game and the force of tackles then, when people go in full-blooded and commit themselves like McManaman did there is a high risk of someone getting hurt.

But that does not mean there was any intent by him to injure his opponent.

Newcastle boss Alan Pardew consoles Massadio Haidara as he is carried off on a stretcher

McManaman is getting plenty of stick at the moment and I know what it is like to be accused of being a dirty player.

If myself, Joey Barton, Ryan Shawcross or Lee Cattermole or anyone else with a reputation for tackling had made that challenge, then there would have been people saying 'throw the book at them, they are a disgrace'.

If it had been a creative midfielder or someone who is not known for getting stuck in then the first thing people say is 'he's not like that'.

That winds me up. Believe me when I say that any professional with a winning mentality who is taking part in a competitive game will have a tackle like McManaman's in them.

 

Robbie Savage .............................. a big girls blouse.

Lucky he's in a job.

 

Robbie Savage, just explained what is wrong with the way these so-called "no nonsense tacklers" are playing the game.

There should never be a point where a full-blooded tackle where either you get hurt, or the opponent gets hurt should be condoned.



Tackle well tackle hard go for the ball, fine.
But not reckless challenges that either take out your opponent or yourself.

Slide for the ball on the foot of the attacker , ok. 50-50 ball in mid-air, put your foot to win it , ok. But not launching yourself at it and risk ending someone's career surely?

 

Robbie Savage was and is a nobody. He is lucky he has mates at the BBC otherwise he would be on the scrapheap.

 

And the prosecution rests its case your honour with the injection into the situation of one Robbie Savage.

Case closed, if he defends it, you know its bad one.