Football Soccer Football Soccer Football Soccer

[MOTHER DUCKER]

5-6 years and counting?

[Dynamite Kid]

5-6 years and counting?

700mil + debt counting :wank:

[Targaryen]

It's a mickey mouse competition.

They need to scrap it. Scale down the Champions League for Champions only, scrap the Europa League and bring back the Cup Winners Cup.

It's just about money and greed these days.

[Texanballer]

American Maurice Edu's goal leads Rangers to a 1-0 win over Celtic.

[AssasinKing]

It's a mickey mouse competition.

They need to scrap it. Scale down the Champions League for Champions only, scrap the Europa League and bring back the Cup Winners Cup.

It's just about money and greed these days.

Lol what the hell?

Your saying its about money and greed, yet you now dont want to give a chance to the lesser teams?

Next you will be calling for the championship and league 1 and 2 to be cancelled....

Anyway CHAMPIONSSSSS WOOOOOO

Vidic was lucky not to get sent off....suprised he didnt get a yellow either...doubt he would of got sent off after tho, cos if he did have a yellow...he wouldnt of got a 2nd for the challange he did it was minor....the ref was just looking for something to give him a yellow for cos of his earlier mistake...

Rooneys header was amazing...unlucky owen, great run and finish for the goal...hopefully he aint out 2 long

[AssasinKing]

Also how did Valencia get man of the match? he did like 2 good crosses....

It was blatently park...he worked his ass off...made amazing runs with the ball...should of had a free kick on the edge of villa area from an great run he made....also hit the post with a great shot...

Easily man of the match

[Stalaggh]

From

As expected the Shawcross 'is not that kind of player' brigade have been out in force since he broke Aaron Ramsey's leg on Saturday evening. He's from a lovely family, apparently, and doesn't have a bad bone in his body (unlike Aaron Ramsey who has two, courtesy of the Stoke player).

There’s no way that was a malicious challenge, Ryan isn’t that sort of player.

So spoke Stoke's assistant manager ... in October 2007 when Shawcross broke former Arsenal man Francis Jeffers ankle in a tackle. Link to the article in the Stoke Sentinel.

When Arsenal played Stoke in November 2008 Shawcross made a challenge on Emmanuel Adebayor which put him out for about three weeks. Here's the video - the challenge was off the pitch, the ball was gone and he deliberately targeted Adebayor's ankle. He walked away, the ref gave nothing, the commentator's risible comment about how he was 'no respecter of big reputations' a perfect example of what I spoke about yesterday. Instead of saying 'That was a bad foul which has no place in the game' he smirked at the young Englishman kicking the foreigner. Good lad.

And two days ago Shawcross put Ramsey out of the game for a long, long time. Arsene Wenger said at his press conference post Stoke:

Spare me the articles tomorrow about how nice Shawcross is because we had all that with Eduardo.

Let me say again, I don't believe for one second that Shawcross meant to break Ramsey's leg. However, the defence of him being not that kind of player rings hollow when you look at his past. He has a history of hurting other players. He is that kind of player. And his tears on Saturday I'm sure were genuine but they were the tears of a man who knows he has gone too far. You can call him physical, combative, hard ... anything you like. For me the bottom line is he's dirty. Not always, but sometimes, and when at 22 you've already broken two players legs you might need to rethink your approach to the game.

I fully expect his teammates and his manager to stick up for him, that is how football works. We all have our opinion of Ryan Shawcross, for us he will always be the guy who broke Ramsey's leg. I hope, as the England team assemble at our training ground this week, he has a most uncomfortable time. Yet this is not just about Shawcross, it's about the culture of excuse making for dangerous, violent play which is all too prevelant in the media and which is exacerbated by the FA's continual refusal to punish it.

Here's an example, from a couple of last season. Kevin Nolan on Everton's Victor Anichebe. Look at the the picture to your left. Thankfully Anichebe did not have his leg broken. I don't really believe in miracles but when you look at that picture it's hard to imagine how he got away with it. I remember watching Match of the Day afterwards and I'm pretty sure it was Alan Shearer who led the bleating about how Kevin Nolan 'is not that kind of player'.

Update: It turns out Anichebe missed the rest of that season and made his first start of this one only this weekend. Nolan got a 3 match ban.

Shearer was at it again at the weekend about Shawcross, saying he had no history of this kind of thing - WRONG - and they all consistently, maddeningly, miss the point. You don't have to be that kind of player but if you tackle somebody like that then you have to be punished for what is an act of violence that has no place on a football pitch. That is not tackling, that is not trying to win the ball. When you go in with two feet, both of them stamping down on the shin of a fellow player there is only one thing you are trying to do and that is hurt him. It might be a moment of madness, atypical behaviour perhaps, but that's all it takes.

The fact that you've never done it before doesn't excuse it. You don't kill someone in real life and get away with it because 'you're not that kind of person'. Once is enough. Yet the culture that exists in English football is to excuse it time and time again. Nolan got a three match ban for his tackle on Anichebe. Shawcross will miss three games (just one more than Alex Song for cumulative bookings). How is that right? When the punishment does not fit the crime the crimes will continue to happen.

You have idiots like Talksport who are the lowest of the low. I know it's hard for people not to react but they're bottom feeding trolls. Their whole existence is based on boosting their listenership. Do you do that with sensible comment that might do something positive for the game? Of course not. You get more listeners by being outrageous, by making comments you know will rile people and make them call in. You put halfwits like Alan Brazil and Stan Collymore on air as if their opinions on the game matter in the slightest and you instruct them to wind up the audience. I know it's tough but the easy answer is just to switch off.

Nevertheless I completely understand the reaction of fans from whatever club trying to ring in and reason with these people. We all love the game, they only love the sound of their own voices and the ratings. That is the bottom line. Yet they have a malign influence on football, in my opinion. Look at the furore over Eduardo's dive. One of the nicest guys in the game pilloried relentlessly over a bit of gamesmanship that happens over and over and over in games. We don't want to see diving, I think we all accept that, but a media led witch-hunt against Eduardo lasted weeks. It affected Arsenal to the point where referees were not giving us stonewall penalties in Europe and at home.

The double standards are appalling. Steven Gerrard spent the league game at the Grove against us falling over and diving, because he is as bad as anyone when it comes down to it. I didn't hear Collymore or Brazil or anyone else launch a campaign against him. They focus on the trivia, the diving, shirt pulling, hearsay about people possibly spitting, yet when they have a chance to condemn acts of violence on the pitch their only interest is to wind people up and defend the indefensible.

I imagine the reaction from these sanctimonious hypocrites would be entirely different if Wayne Rooney had his leg smashed to pieces. I hope that never happens but if it did then we might hear something about how certain challenges are not acceptable. The problem of course is that the Talksport culture is ubiquitous and as long as that exists and former players and pundits and presenters continue to make excuses for the likes of Shawcross then we remain no closer to having a positive effect on the game.

The FA too. Spineless at the best of times, we know that, but how long have I said on this blog that their disciplinary system is antiquated and broken? You cannot possibly justify to anyone with a brain Shawcross missing three games while Song misses two for a series of yellow cards and Ramsey misses up to a year, if he comes back at all. It is obscene. As I've said, no player goes out to break another player's leg, but no driver goes out to kill someone. If the driver speeds and drives recklessly though, he is responsible for what might happen. When you behave in a certain way you must be held accountable for the consequences ... except in football where you can destroy a player, have a massive impact on another team, and your 'punishment' is a couple of weeks off (at most), on full pay before coming back as if nothing ever happened. What. The. ****?

For me the bottom line is this - those with responsibility are shirking it. The FA with their unwillingness to revamp their disciplinary procedures. Certain sections of the media who see an incident like Aaron Ramsey as a way to boost ratings and make more money. They are parasites on the game of football. Disgusting, reprehensible and dangerous. They excuse thuggery and violence and the effect of that is more thuggery and more violence. They should be ashamed of themselves but to feel shame you have to have a slight understanding of right and wrong and they just don't care. The more outraged Arsenal fans that ring in, the more right they think they are. They are just vile.

And it's not just confined to tabloids or trashy radio stations. The marked difference between the Independent's Sam Wallace and the fantastic Patrick Barclay on Sky's Sunday Supplement shows you how pervasive it is. Wallace is an excuse maker whose lack of focus on what is important is a contributory factor to injuries like this.

[MOTHER DUCKER]

He is just not that kind of player Wenger is a straight up ***** trying to tarnish this young guys career.

I swear ****ing Arsenal would only be happy if you can't go within 5 yards of them and had basketball type rules with minimal contact. It's a shame the kids leg got broke but this is a physical contact sport **** happens, if it looked remotely like a Ben Thatcher/Roy Keane challenge i would understand Wenger.

But no he is just trying to ruin this guys career cause he is pissed off.

[Stalaggh]

He is just not that kind of player Wenger is a straight up ***** trying to tarnish this young guys career.

I swear ****ing Arsenal would only be happy if you can't go within 5 yards of them and had basketball type rules with minimal contact. It's a shame the kids leg got broke but this is a physical contact sport **** happens, if it looked remotely like a Ben Thatcher/Roy Keane challenge i would understand Wenger.

But no he is just trying to ruin this guys career cause he is pissed off.

Tarnish his career, nah, hes doing it himself with the way he makes these hard challenges, he may have not meant to break his leg but he HAS a history of these type of challenges. **** does happen in football but when a player that has a history of bad challenges, albeit not like a Roy Keane or Marco Materazzi type but bad nonetheless, it isn't tarnishing his career its just the truth. Wenger has seen this 3 times in the past 4 years, and each time its, he not that type of player and each time they say the same thing, "He's not that kind of a player".... so yeah.

If this happened to one of Demento's key players, a Rooney, Evra, etc. he would be the first in line saying the same thing and I'll be with him on those comments, more so if the same thing has happened three times. There are tough teams in the league, who go out and make harder challenges on the top team more than the others and that clearly has to be adressed. The way Bolton played against Arsenal in both games was clearly to rock them with these types of challenges, from Kevin Nolan admitting he ordered the Bolton team to rough up Walcott because he was too fast and wanted to see if he came back after a kick to the hair pulling and stomp attempt on Fabregas by Taylor a season later and stuff like this: ......... yeah, its just Arsenal and their fans who are claiming this type of play is purposely directed at them

[AssasinKing]

It was a hard challange, but it was just unlucky

People that play football, know these things happen, arsenal are unlucky that its happened now 3 times..... but i mean, You see tackles probably just as hard as this all the time, its just the fact Ramseys foot was planted straight into the ground after he had kick the ball......

There was clearly no intent, Compare that to ***ans leg break.....Wasn't the slightest bit of intent....

Maybe he does have a history of hard challanges, but this is football its a rough sport...its more physical now adays then ever before, they get paid to play, they get paid for the risks, they know what they are getting themselves into when they play.....im not saying he should have been prepared for something like this, but everyone knows it can happen anyone...

These accidents happen rarely and when they do happen are blown out of proportion....