Re: De Jong injury to Ben Arfa
HellasLEAF said:
I'll say 2 more things and then leave it be. It's obvious that there are some true blue nutters on here that will never admit to anything a City players does is wrong. That's fine, stick up for our own and all. But I'm tired of tackles like that from players like De Jong ending the careers of more skillful footballers. I've seen it time and again, I've seen it to my own friends. It's not pleasant.
1 - I think the Dutch coach is foolish for dropping him. I'm very surprised at this move. I hope RM doesn't have any such thoughts. We need this player.
2 - I find it plain strange that people thing De Jong should be blameless for this. Totally blameless. His actions deserve some form of repercussion. What? I dunno. But blameless?? Good lord, he through himself clean through a player full force and broke his leg shit sake!!
he deserves nothing.
the tackle was okay, it's an unfortunate series of physical coincidences.
players will make the same tackle a hundred times this year, no legs will be broken.
the standing leg won't plant so firmly and, no matter how much 'force' is in the collision, the guy will fall over harmlessly, even if it does plant, the guy with the ball will be hit anywhere but the dead centre of the lower leg, and he'll get a bruise and a sore leg.
or the contact will be made with by some other part of the tackler's leg, not their kneecap, and the muscle and fat will absorp the blow, everyone will be fine.
it need only be a minutely oblique or obtuse angle, either glancing off above, below, left or right, and they will just slide off each other.
most likely, the knee will miss the leg entirely.
the idea that de jong used his knee recklessly.... injuring the person you are tackling with the knee on your trailing leg? it's the least likely outcome imaginable.
the injury is the horrible result of a series of chance and coincidence. de jong has made dodgy tackles before, but his reputation doesn't make him responsible for the outcome of this perfectly reasonably conceived and executed challenge.
true blue nutter? ask me about Ben Thatcher or Joey Barton some time. The truth is, other City players have made far more plain attempts to hurt somebody already this year. other teams have done much, much worse.
tackling is dangerous, but any contact sport is dangerous. humans are fragile and any fall or collision can have an unexpected, devastating outcome. you cannot remove injury from this sort of sport. you can only legislate against cynical, dangerous play, and stamp out deliberate attempts to injure. The moment you start thinking, a bad outcome must mean a bad execution, or even worse, bad intent, you are forgetting the realities of human physiology, and the basics of cause and effect.
If this injury is unacceptable to you, and the only way to stop it is to prevent the challenge, then all slide challenges must be outlawed, the goalkeepers must not dive at the feet of the attacker, and ultimately, block tackles where the opponent is moving at speed are unacceptable as well, as all these are difficult to judge, and even when executed well, can easily result in serious injury through direct impact.
I'd rather watch football, to be honest.
