Monday, April 5, 2010

Karl Henry: Talentless, Brainless, Wanker

"I'm bitterly disappointed with it, it wasn't a red card," said the midfielder. "Maybe a yellow card, but I think I would still have been screaming at the referee, so to get a red card for that is an absolute disgrace. Denilson has dropped Rosicky short, I've gone in to win it and I've nicked the ball. Their player has come in, [Thomas] Vermaelen and whoever else, trying to get me sent off. Two minutes later, Rosicky's up running around and absolutely fine. That's what they do here. I don't think it's pretty, it's not good. Their players moan when they get tackled, when they get hit hard, and so does Arsène Wenger.

"I certainly wouldn't be running over trying to get a player sent off. We know that's the game we are in – I think here in particular. Arsenal moan a lot, their players go down like a sack of spuds. They get hit hard like any other clubs do and we are hearing about it for weeks and weeks. To get sent off is a disgrace. They are a great side and we love Arsenal's great football, but when they are rolling around getting people sent off, it makes you not want to see them do so well."

An absolute crock of shit, and indicative again of the archaic attitude to tackling that plagues the English game. The tackle from behind was outlawed about twenty years ago, and we still get cloggers like Henry moaning on a practically weekly basis when they suffer censure for it.

Maybe a straight red was a bit harsh. And maybe Rosicky did a bit of rolling about, but a whole load of players do that, and if it wasn't an Arsenal player, the stereotypes wouldn't be thrown about so readily. Mick Mac wouldn't have his players talk so disrespectfully of Manchester United, for instance. But Arsenal are seen as a "foreign" club and so fall victim to foreign stereotypes. Here's another stereotype for you, Karl: the average English footballer- talentless, cave-dwelling, illiterate push-and-rush merchant. You seem to conform to that.

Pundits often bemoan the changed rules on tackling, saying that the game is in danger of becoming a non-contact sport and that the art of tackling is being disregarded. There is a certain validity to that viewpoint, but also a flipside to the coin. Tackling is indeed an art, when done well; kicking people is not an art, at least not in footBALL. Some people do not seem to know the difference.

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