The League Managers Association have hit back at Danny Murphy over his comments regarding managers creating bad tackles. The LMA were deeply unimpressed after the Fulham midfield claimed that the likes of Tony Pulis, Sam Allardyce and Mick McCarthy deliberately wound up players which in turn could lead to horror tackles.
While I do sort of see where Murphy is coming from, and I do believe that managers don’t always help players keep their cool. I think Murphy is still angry over the challenge that saw his teammate Bobby Zamora suffer a broken leg.
But Karl Henry, the man who’s clumsy lunge left the England striker with the injury, wasn’t malicious that day and Murphy is wrong to wildly accuse managers of a lack of control over their players.
At present there is a real push to eradicate dangerous tackles. But I don’t think the tackle that Henry committed was dangerous just like I don’t feel the Nigel de Jong committed a dangerous tackle on Hatem Ben Arfa.
In many ways I was saddened by the news Ben Arfa’s parent club Marseille are considering legal action against De Jong. The tackle perhaps did have an element of needless force, but in no way was it malicious and in no way did the Manchester City midfielder look to deliberately injure the young Frenchman.
Injuries are an unfortunate consequence of playing a contact sport. I can remember breaking my foot after receiving a hard tackle in a Sunday League game, but I can guarantee that I will have at some point caused an opponent to also pick up an injury.
What I am trying to say is that if everybody took legal action after every injury, football would be ruined. Hard challenges are very much a part of the sport and I would be bitterly disappointed to see them banned.
While coaches can try to minimise clumsiness in challenges, they will never be able to guarantee a 100% safe way of tackling and we must remember that the game is a contact sport –accidents are bound to occur.
What do you think? Is there a problem with the state of tackling in the Premier League or are we just seeing players suffer some bad injuries as a result of pure bad fortune?
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