Tackling in football

Tackling has been a topic of great debate in the world of football in recent weeks. It started with the comments made by Fulham captain Danny Murphy at a football conference, when he blamed managers of pumping up their players so much that it would inevitably lead to strong tackles. This was after the horror tackles from Nigel De Jong and Karl Henry, with the former's breaking Newcastle's Hatem Ben Arfa's leg.  Murphy also named three clubs who supposedly employ these tactics, the three clubs being Stoke, Blackburn and Wolves. After these comments were broadcasted throughout England, it caused a divide in opinion on this issue. In one corner, many have argued that the majority of the tackles in the current game are not reckless but rather mistimed. Blackpool manager Ian Holloway argues the case that because of the fast pace that the game is played in the Premier League, tackles are bound to be mistimed and that accidents will occur from them. While in the other corner, there is a belief that reckless tackles do occur in the game today, and as Danny Murphy says, players are so pumped up and are sent out to stop other teams from playing. Arsene Wenger has been arguing about this for the past couple of years, with Arsenal being at the end of teams with the tactics of "roughing them up" which has led to two high profile injuries involving his players, Eduardo in 2008 and Aaron Ramsey in February 2010.

My personal opinion is that, tackling is a major part of Football, hard and fair tackles are what defines some players, players like Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane were tough tacklers and it was what made them such great players. Getting rid of tackling would make football non contact and games would not have the same amount of  intensity as it would now. Many fans are able to feed off the energy of a crunching tackle from their top defender or centre midfielder and gives the whole crowd a lift. But being able to tackle hard does not excuse tactics of kicking players. I believe that many teams who play Arsenal employ these tactics, because as many pundits say, "they dont enjoy a physical battle and a bit of roughing up." I believe reckless tackles need to be cut out of the game, and anyone caught doing it should be severely punished irrespective of who it is. Even if the referee does see it and does not act on it, the FA should punish the offending player themselves. Reckless tackles are the one of the main reason players careers are shortened and legs are broken, regardless of which team they play for, no football fan wants to see a football player have their leg broken.