In all fairness Fran Tiss played through a time when there was more physical stuff allowed and he would have faced the likes of Keane your Wimbldon crazy gang including Vinny Jones and the likes of Steve Mcmahon and people like Martin Keown and Tony Adams all good players but players whose job was to stop the flair and i suggest for all Matts skill he could look after himself ok as could the likes of Shearer ,Sheringham and Wright.A defender should be able to pitt his strength and physicality and defensive nouse against the skill ,cunning and physicality of a striker no quater given and a flair player should look after himself and not always look to the ref it is a fundement of the original game.I totally accept that anything nasty should be cut from the game but we cannot be allowed to accept the type of nonsense that Young got away with at Old Trafford yesterday and even what Lallana tried on Saturdaytake away the physical side and the game will lose some appeal for me in any case
Fran I think the physical element of the game is a vital ingredient and I would agree with Chaplow about players like Le Tissier being able to look after themselves. The example of Lallana's dive on Saturday is a goos one - it was total nonsense and Adama should have known better. Picking up on the comment about football detracting from archery practice, I love the idea of this but am not convinced by the accuracy of this story. I've heard it said before and admittedly I always believed it was a myth but in fact Henry IV (father of the king who won at Agincourt ) banned the levying of money for football. Nothing to do with fighting the Feench, but it does make the story fit nicely into the English perception of the game and our cultural identity! Shame that Henry IV wasn't around later as he could have saved Pompey! Prior to this Edward III banned football and other pastimes in 1363. Intriguing investigsating this on the web and Wicki comes up with some facts not included in the history books I have. I was talking to someone the other week who supported Chelsea and commented to him about how their fortunes had changed from the days of Dixon and Speedy up front or even Chopper Harris. i think that the influx of foriegn players has changed the physical culture of the sport and the likes of Chelsea and particularly Arsenal have changed this. Nowadays, I think some player are more cynical and not quite so sporting whereas in the 60's, 70's and 80's there were definately "hard" players around although they were more gentlemanly. I would have to exclude Don Revie's Leeds from that assessment though.
