Why Are We Seeing So Many Bad Tackles?

When asked what he thought of no player from either side picking up a booking, McCarthy responded with a sarcastic comment. He said: “I asked the lads to go and knock seven bells out of everyone like I normally do what the hell were they playing at?

“It’s a shame because we went out and played free flowing football for 45 minutes and were rampant.”

I must admit I think McCarthy has responded in exactly the right way. While Tony Pulis defended himself and the actions of his squad with a well worded statement, McCarthy laughs off the accusations with his typical sarcasm.

For me, while Murphy’s comments may have been taken slightly out of context,  they were laughable. He was never going to achieve anything by attacking individual manages, and there was no need to name names

In reality we all know that Stoke, Blackburn and Wolves are amongst the most imposing and physical sides in the league, just look at Karl Henry’s horror challenge at Wigan. But the problem with overzealous tackles isn’t limited to these three teams, as we saw with Jack Wilshere and his desperate lunge yesterday.

Part of me feels that in years gone by there wouldn’t have been such a fuss made of these clumsy tackles and I do feel reluctant to write an article that could only add to the media storm surrounding tackles which is developing on a day to day basis.

But it is a problem which has crept in to our game. Every weekend we are now seeing a wreckless lunge by somebody. Personally I don’t buy in to the argument that this is down to poor tackling coaching.

I think the problem is down to the importance of winning in the Premier League. There is so much at stake in the Premier League at the moment in every single game; desperation really does play a big part. When players are desperate, lunges creep in and that is when injuries occur.

I think the dangerous tackle is more down to temperament rather than technique and if we are going to stamp it out, coaches need to work on the psychology of players and make sure they don’t get caught up in the emotion of games.

What do you think? Why are we seeing so many bad tackles at the moment?