I'd be a bit of a hypocrite if I didn't say that Jack Wilshere's tackle on Nikola Zigic was out of order.
After all, if it had happened to an Arsenal player I have no doubt I would be doing my nut.
The only reason I can think of for Wilshere making the 'challenge' on Zigic was that he was looking for a little bit of revenge.
Earlier in the game, despite it seeming impossible because of the height difference, the Serbians shoulder had connected with Jack's face.
This is no excuse though.
Wilshere's tackle was wrong, plain and simple, but at least he admitted it and apologised.
And guess what? Arsene Wenger admitted the red card was the right decision. He doesn't suffer from myopia all the time as suggested.
Of course tackles like this are becoming the scourge of our game. It seems every week a bad challenge is being made. We Gooners should know, it usually happens to an Arsenal player.
From my point of view it couldn't have happened at a worse time for Arsenal and Arsene Wenger either.
Wilshere's sending-off for a rash tackle will give the likes of Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce some much needed ammo to have yet another dig at us.
The Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers mugs/manager don't need an excuse to have a pop and I have no doubt that in the next week or so there will be some bleating coming from their direction in one form or another.
While none of us are defending Jack Wilshere I do believe that Arsenal cannot win.
If we are kicked off the park then we are too soft but the minute we kick back then we are hypocrites and cannot moan about being booted around the pitch.
That's not to say I agree with what Wilshere did though.
Jack will learn from this. It seems he has that 'nasty' side to his game, a bit like Dennis Bergkamp, which I suppose is a good thing. He can look after himself. But it has to be in the right way.
How do you stop the naughty tackles though? I suppose the only thing the referee can do is send players off but is that going to be enough?
How do you prove intent in a tackle? How do you prove that a player deliberately wanted to hurt someone?
It's so tough.
I've seen the idea bandied about that if a players commits a dangerous tackle, injures a player, and the injured party is out for a long time, then he should be banned for the amount of time that person is injured for.
Maybe this the way forward. At the very least these reckless tackles should be punished by being banned for a long period of time. In my opinion at least a five match suspension.
Nobody wants tackling to be outlawed. It is an art unto itself. Like passing, shooting. A skilled attribute to have. What we want is the recklessness squeezed out from the game.
What Wilshere did was reckless and luckily for him, Arsenal, Wenger and us, a bone wasn't broken in Zigic's ankle. Or we, and the Birmingham striker, would be fucked.
See the difference though? At least we accept that Wilshere was in the wrong.
Keep it Goonerish............
16 comments:
there is no way that the boy's tackle can be compared to that animal at city leg breaker tackle. a kung fu kick with following leg. jack's tackle would have been a yellow card a few weeks ago. we need more people like jack in the team not bottlers like arsharvin and song who were missing yesterday as it got dirty.
You're absolutely right. Both Wenger and Wilshere came out yesterday and said that they had no complaints with the decision, unlike certain individuals who claimed that Martin Taylor and Ryan Shawcross didn't deserve red cards for their tackles. I think it was Steve Bruce who said that Shawcross's tackle arguably didn't even merit a yellow card! Karl Henry has come out on more than one occasion and arrogantly dismissed the charges against him. He did so after his red card against us last year and again after his red against Fulham (?) a few weeks ago. Therein lies the difference.
I am sorry to say that this has been a calamity just waiting to happen. In the short time that Jack has been playing in the first team, he has come close to that outcome several times. He even did something similar in his brief, cameo role for England a few weeks ago.
You simply cannot make tackles from more than about a metre from your opponent, otherwise you are bound to launch yourself uncontrollably with a high risk of damage.
Jack is young but he needs someone to take charge and teach him what is acceptable and what is not in tackling. And he needs it now.
How embarrassing. After being lauded a hypocrite for waging a war on tough tackling once all his dirty players, like Vieira (more red cards than anyone in the history of Premiership football), Keown, Lauren etc. have left, Arsene Wenger was left with egg on his face on Saturday afternoon.
Arsenal youngster, Jack Wilshere, was guilty of a nasty tackle when playing against Birmingham today. So, you would expect that after spending weeks ranting about the dangers of bad tackles, Wenger would criticise his own player, right? After singling out individual players in on other teams, he would surely expect his own players to set the example, right? After claiming our very own Paul Scholes had a “dark side”, then he would be happy to admit the same about his own player, right? Course not.
“He mistimed his tackle and got a red card, which he deserved. He did not spend his whole game trying to kick people, he was one of the best players on the pitch today. It was more of frustration and did not want to hurt the player, but we do not complain about the red card.”
When one of his players makes a horrible challenge, something he admits is worthy of a straight red, he’s got an excuse or a reason. First he claims it was a mistimed challenge, then he concedes it was a bad challenge which came out of frustration. Is that ok? Is it alright to go in late on someone because you’re frustrated?
You can’t wage a war on bad tackling then excuse your own players with the lame excuse of ‘mistimed’. Young Wilshere is already developing a bit of a reputation of having a “dark side” but I won’t hold my breath in waiting for Wenger to speak about his own player with half the venom of others. His campaign is reduced to ridicule though if he only criticises dangerous challenges outside of the Emirates camp.
This was an opportunity missed. If he spoke about Wilshere’s challenge in the same way he has spoken about Bolton, Stoke, Blackburn etc. then you could take his campaign seriously. We all know that tackles, like Wilshere’s yesterday, do no favours to the sport, and you could have respect for Wenger trying to bring attention to them. But now he just looks likes a whinging old git, who will tear opponents to shreds and then defend his own. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not for one second claiming that Wenger should criticise his own players, but if he’s not prepared to do that, he needs to shut up about other players.
You can’t have it both ways, Wenger.
'you can't have it both ways wenger'
he isn't trying to you moron, you are the hypocrite in calling him a hypocrite,
wrighty is spot on in pointing out the fact that both wenger and wilshere have admitted culpability,
wenger is not being remotely hypocritical and he isn't trying to defend the tackle,
read his comments in context and you would realise this
Oh the irony...you have to question why Wenger made Wilshere go on the pitch with the intention to injure the opposition.
as much as that poster is trolling, i agree.
i love arsene, even though this post is going to make you think otherwise. i completely agree that tackling needs to be sorted. but also, he needs to shut the fuck up and think about how his "dramas" in the press are pressurising and affecting the team.
imo it's no coincidence that since arsene has gone from cool as a cucumber to this marauding madman on the touchline, arsenal have gone backwards. he's lost his credibility in that regard.
again, any coincidence our best result of the season happened when he was in the stands?
he should stop talking to the press period. i know he probably was asked the question, rather than started the debate. but he's letting the press twist his subjects. on top of that, he gives managers and refs all the ammunition they need to bring us down or call us liars/cheats/hypocrites. and it keeps coming back to haunt us. for example:
eduardo v celtic - diving topic goes mainstream - rooney dives v arsenal, wins pen, nobody says anything, wenger can't condemn it.
he should just come out, say "no more press because you turn everything i say into a soap opera", stop prancing up and down on the touchline and go back to being the arsene wenger people took seriously. this is where i think we miss david dein...from a p.r standpoint, and as arsene's mate, he wouldn't have let this mess happen.
also, CONCENTRATE ON SORTING OUT THE FUCKING INJURY CRISIS that's crippled us from winning anything. it's been there since the move to the emirates. work out what the problem is and get rid of it. THAT is what you're payed 6 million pounds a year for (more than anyone bar cesc). ironic how his wages are so good considering his constant mentioning of "within our wage structure".
yes, Wenger critisizes other players and yes, if it were a player on another team that made the exact same challenge that Wilshere made Wenger would probably do his nut but how can anyone in their right mind EXPECT wenger to come out and say: My player is a dirty, cheating bugger with a 'dark side' and shouldnt be allowed to kick a ball again. Anyone who expects Wenger to say anything like that is absolutely delousional. As wrighty correctly said, it wasnt defended by Wilshere, Wenger or anyone else. How many times have we seen horrific injuries and then the same old comments are churned out 'he's a good, honest lad' or 'a professional who wouldnt harm anybody'. I dont CARE about their personality, they cut someones leg in two!! Admit it was disgusting and lets get on with it! So, in summary I think we can just say: Was it a disgusting challenge? Yes. Does Wenger know it? Yes. Did he defend it? No. Is he going to tell the press what a terrible person his young midfielder is? Definitely NO. Everybody knows this so can we just leave it at that?
ahh, but wenger said Wilshere didn't mean it - yet he did mean it, it was a revenge tackle. did taylor and shawcross mean to break legs? doubt it. did wilshire mean to do Zigic, yes. and had he broken his leg it would have been worse than the shawcross/taylor tackles as it would have been premeditated.
Was it REALLY a revenge tackle? Is everybody 100% sure? Can you say 'my name is Jack Wilshere and I tackled the tall bloke hard cos he pi**ed me off'? No. No one can actaully say that. All you can do is the same as everybody does all the time and pick on tiny incidents, over scrutinize, over evaluate, come to your own conclusions and if enough morons have the same point of view after playing the guessing game 'it must be true'
Well people like you seem to have made your mind up that eduardo and ramsey's legs were recklessly broken. At least with Wilshere these is some evidence it was motivated by revenge. As Zigic smacked him in the mouth and before the disgusting tackle Wilshere had already had another hack at him. Of course NOTHING can be proved - in which case why fuckin talk about anything you plank?
Who said anything about Eduardo or Ramsey? Thats totally different right now. So, it goes from 'It was premeditated' to 'there was some evidence' and 'it cant be proved', which, ironically, proves my point. I didnt say dont talk about anything, I just mean dont speculate about what you cant possibly know and come to some conclusion that you think fits because you like it as an idea or a good talking point. No need to get pissy about it.
These trolling idiots don't even have the decency to do their moronic work with any intelligence.
Before Shawcross shattered Ramsey's limb Stoke's players were crowing in the papaers about how they were going to rough us up. The evidence is there of premeditation. The evidence was there of the manager and his players being intent on physically intimidating the foreign, southern softies....
Before Taylor destroyed Eduardo's Arsenal career Mcleish and his players had been talking of getting in the Arsenal players faces... the evidence of premeditation is there for anyone who cares to look for it.
The idiot that shattered Diaby's ankle up at Sunderland jumped into 3 or 4 similarly dangerous tackles and was warned about it by the Arsenal players... his manager had sent him out to "drop a few bombs" and the result was another gifted player losing a year of his development and even today still playing in pain!
The retard who copies and pastes this tripe calling Wenger/ Arsenal a hypocrite needs to get his moral compass in some kind of order. Nicola Zigic is 6' 7". Jack is 5' 7". Despite that height difference Zigic managed to elbow Jack in the mouth! Now Jack's attempt at retaliation, even if that was the case was still wrong but... what the hell did Ramsey ever do to Shawcross? What conceivable thing did Eduardo ever do to Taylor? And the muppet who shattered Diaby's ankle... what was done to him? What did any Arsenal player do to those neanderthals except for the poisonous malice invoked by their jealousy of gifted foreigners. Listen to Tony Pulis's demented rants and tell me that anyone can be surprised that that bastard sends out teams that harm others physically.
The only hypocrisy here is from clowns who haven't the intelligence to see that all these tackles need to condemned without reserve by everyone in football as we have done. And Zigic's limb wasn't even broken. Muppets.
As for the idea that Wenger should stop talking to the Press... that would be a cowardly capitulation. The man should speak his mind even if the xenophobic press and semi literate managers twist his words. The idea that that the issue of over- the -top tackling would even be on the table for discussion without Wenger putting it there is fantasy. Wenger has a responsibility to protect the young players he brings to the club and by speaking out against this ridiculous violence he's attempting to do that... why should he shut up after a horrific injury like Ramsey's or Eduardo's?
And our best result was probably our 6-0 win against Braga, followed by our thrashing of Blackpool... Spurs in the Carling Cup isn't even 3rd best in my book as our win at Blackburn was far more significant and impressive and wenger was on the touchline for all those. Get it right.
Wrighty mate, I'm starting to get pissed off with Fabregas and his negativity!
"We Will Try" was his response to (Do you think you will beat Man City)
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