Comments on: Is Arsene Wenger right – Do teams play harder against Arsenal?

By: forma

forma — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:41:14 +0000

I reckon your all just a bunch of wineing bitchs, teams are intitle to play harder against Arsenal because it is the best way of trying to get a result

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Mon, 01 Mar 2010 15:23:05 +0000

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By: Is Arsene Wenger right – Do teams play harder against Arsenal … | NFL Topics Blog

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 10:22:03 +0000

[...] Mirror Football wrote a very interesting post today. Here’s a quick excerpt:First and foremost, it was an horrendous tackle from Stoke City’s Ryan Shawcross which now leaves Arsenal midfielder, Aaron Ramsey’s career in the. [...]

By: Is Arsene Wenger right – Do teams play harder against Arsenal … « Anees Khan

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:19:33 +0000

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Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:40:51 +0000

[...] See the original post here: Is Arsene Wenger right – Do teams play harder against Arsenal … [...]

By: Is Arsene Wenger right – Do teams play harder against Arsenal … | All Topics Blog

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:19:52 +0000

[...] Eric Sondheimer wrote an interesting post today on Here’s a quick excerpt First and foremost, it was an horrendous tackle from Stoke City’s Ryan Shawcross which now leaves Arsenal midfielder, Aaron Ramsey’s career in the. [...]

By: wan

wan — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:59:59 +0000

@Glazer out
So is playing harder worth putting the career of one of the brightest talents in the uk out for a year atleast? Not to mention eduardo and diaby before him. There may have been worse tackles out there but the result of ryan’s (unlucky) tackle leaves a 19 year old boy on a hospital bed with his shin in 2 pieces. Not to mention Ryan has previously done something like this before to franciss jeffers and last season tackling adebayore outside the pitch injuring his ankle. So i for one can’t feel sorry for him. It’s like feeling sorry for a drunk driver who has accidently knocked someone.

By: Lou

Lou — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:51:33 +0000

In my personal opinion, what happened wasn’t even a tackle. It was a collision, and an accidental one at that. Shawcross took a slightly heavy touch on the ball, and chased it at full pelt just as Ramsey was coming in from a different angle, also at full pelt. Sky technicians have worked out that Ramsey got to the ball a mere 0.015 of a second before Shawcross reached the same spot. With things happening that quickly, I doubt Shawcross even realised Ramsey had touched the ball, let alone had time to pull out. Shawcross’ foot (at an acceptable height, and laces up) collided with Ramsey’s leg, which was poorly placed (foot firmly planted on the ground) to absorb the pressure.

Both players went in hard, fast and fair. Ramsey’s injury is an absolute tragedy, and I hope he makes a full recovery, but it’s a mistake to describe the incident as anything other than an unfortunate collision as a result of two players committing themselves to a 50-50 ball.

Regardless as to whether you approve of Stoke’s style of play, or you think that Stoke play too aggressively (although you’d be hard-pushed to find evidence that they play any more aggressively against Arsenal than any other team), it’s entirely erroneous to suggest that what happened to Ramsey yesterday was anything other than bad luck.

In yesterday’s game, Arsenal arguably played harder than Stoke. For the most part, they looked a better team for it, although it’s hypocritical of Wenger to claim that managers tell their teams to be physical against Arsenal when it seems obvious that he told his own team something similar yesterday. Fabregas made some awful tackles, including one on Shawcross, and a terrible one on Collins from behind at the end of the game, after which he taunted the Stoke bench. But, of course, Arsenal play ‘pretty’ football, and have a reputation for being delicate flowers, so Fabregas went unpunished and nobody mentions the bad tackles committed by Arsenal players.