Thursday, October 07, 2010

Breaking People's Legs is Part of the Game



The furor over Nigel de Jong's X-rated tackle on Hatem Ben Arfa over the weekend continues to rage, with De Jong dropped by the Netherlands for the upcoming slate of international matches. Fortunately for Nigel, Ryan "Not That Kind of Player" Shawcross, whose firm-but-fair testing of players like Francis Jeffers, Emmanual Adebayor and most famously Aaron Ramsey has resulted in a cumulative 2 seasons lost to injury by the aforementioned players, has leaped to his defense:

"You have just got to accept in these times, with the ball moving so fast and the player moving so fast, sometimes you are going to mis-time tackles and that is when injuries can happen."

Yes, that's right, fault is to be found with fast players moving the ball too quickly. Skill players of the world take heed; the onus is on you to make yourselves and the ball available for tackling at moderate speeds or it's your own fault when injuries happen and you find yourself with a double fracture which will shorten your career and hurt for the rest of your life.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Speaking of Ramsey, is he set to make a return next week?