Van Persie was running at speed and CHelliani slided in with a one-foot lunge – got ball and man simulataneously.

Now, watch it in slow motion, and you can see Chelliani cocked his leg, i.e. pull it back slightly, and then lunged his foot forward.

If you are standing, and performed this kind of action, it is called stumping, i.e. in martial art, drive your knee with full force downwards.

What Shawcross did is in a horizontal position, scything his leg forward, and like in martial art, a roundhouse kick committed with the full body force, plus momentum generated by a speeding 200-lb body, leg accelerating, and the impact force is great..maybe as much as 500-lb force (as calculated in History Channel “Human Weapon” for kicks by expert), the point of contact on any part of Ramsey’s leg will result in massive damage.

Imagine Shawcross’ shin-pad applying 500 lb force onto Ramsey’s leg.

Even if there is no intention to hurt, but by going in with such great force in a 50:50 ball situation, I can safely conclude that the real intention is physical intimidation, to get the lick in first. I will of course not same the actual word as it may lead to a litigation suit.

LIke Chelliani’s tackle on Van Persie, of course, there is no malice in it, just a man game, accident does happen, it is regrettably, and one Arsenal and two ex-Arsenal players crippled by the same player is just a coincidence.

I really enjoy the things you tell us. I really do.

Rafa Honigstein’s take on the weekends events.

a) Jumping into a tackle and 2-foot lunge.
b) And sliding tackle at speed directly at a player, calculated to get ball and man.

Most of you all missed that dnagerous sliding tackle by Faye aimed directly at CLichy and ball.
If Clichy had not jumped and not awared of Faye’s presence (as he was driving along the left flank), he will be kicked out of the game.

And if you all had watched Liverpool vs Everton game, you will notice the brutality executed by both sides with 2 footed lunges and jumping into the tackle.

If this clear guideline on 2-foot lunge, jumping into the tackle (against Eduardo) and slide tackle at speed (against Diaby and Ramsey) are all automatic red-card offences, perhaps our 3 players may not have suffered leg breaks…or Felliani (Everton) out for the season.

EXCESSIVE FORCE is the key word.

And I thought that many years back, a guidelienw a sin palce that any players thata re red-craded are not called up for internationals?

Has the moral standards of FA dropped that much that winning is everything and “RESPECT” campaign is abandoned because there is no profit in it?

From the fifa rule book and guideline to referees (as myself):

Using excessive force” means that the player has far exceeded the necessary use of force and is in danger of injuring his opponent.
• A player who uses excessive force must be sent off.

As far as I can understand English this simply is saying that no tackel can be legitimate if you it brings danger to an opponent.

It could be that my English is not completely up to the standard of others but the way I say it to you is the way the rules are explained to the refs of any country that is member of Fifa. And as far as I know the EPL is being played under fifa rules.

brady, a stoke fan i presume, if you had read ony of the last few months blogs, you will realise that this site is an oasis of calm and thoughtful chat which is to my mind very well informed. as fo the red not being given, it is the least penalty available. and in order to stamp out such tackles ( we all agree it was a bad tackle don’t we?) then a red card is the minimum he should get.

in a fair world, any player that gets sent off for such a challenge should not be able to play until the injured party comes back. also he should not be paid for this period and the offending club shopuld pay the wages of the injured party while he is out injured. if the rules were so, this kind of incident would never happen.

the simple facts are that stoke is a shit team whose only chanmce against a team such as ours is to play hard.

Fifa has made it clear to all (who wants to hear that is) that skilful players are to be protected by refs and that players who use to much force should be red carded. Never mind if they break other peoples legs. Contact is allowed but NO CONTACT IS ALLOWED THAT COULD BRING DANGER TO THE HEALTH OF ANOTHER PLAYER!!!!

They are all professionals and know what they are doing so they know very well when they are crossing the borderline.

But I will do it in full later on and maybe some could read and try to understand what the rules say.

it was not malicious in intent but it was still wrong. It was reckless and that is the point. I think he ought to get more than three games. if he does not, it will just encourage more of those kind of reckless type tackles and late tackles! The English press and public is a bit blood thirsty and so they like those kind of players. It goes deep in there culture of football.

I do think that lots of teams do play Arsenal with an emphasis on physical challenges and that referees do not do enough to protect them players. But that is not going to change unless the FA tells the referees to call more fouls.

I think there is some room for tactical fouls and some teams are very good at using those fouls to break up attacks. I do think some kind of collective penalty might be good so that those are used more sparingly than they are now.

I think that some of the negative attitude toward Arsenal is that they are NOT ENGLISH enough. There is jealousy of the skills that the non-English had and resentment that they are better than the local guys.

But the local guys who are good are also big jerks like Terry! If he was not a football player he would be working a nasty labor job because he has nothing else to offer but his physical ability. Most of the English players are just like him. Can you name one who could finish Uni or who does anything for other people?

It was good that they could pull the game out. They hand ball was a bit soft but Ramsey should have had a penalty earlier – don’t know how the referee could see the hand ball but not see the foul on Ramsey in the box!!!

What I have heard, is Arsenal fans say is that the way the team responded on Saturday may have ‘spiritually’ helped purge the squad of the memories of the Birmingham game.
If Gallas had played, perhaps this time he may not have been able to restrain himself from retaliation by wandering off up the pitch.

A good thing he wasn’t there!

COYG!

The Shawcross challenge was a little like a Taekwondo kick, kicks that are designed to break limbs. But Taekwondo is a full contact martial art, football isn’t.

Who needs to talk about intent?

The sentiments about English refereeing standards, of unacceptable levels of violence is a favourite stick which people from outside English Football use to castigate & mock the standards and skill levels here.

The German p(l)undit Rafa Honigstein was one example I heard, condescendingly explain sometime last season to his fellow p(l)undits that as long as they allow standards that are unacceptable elsewhere, England will never win a WC. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have contact etc.

I can’t see the future, who knows, but he is probably correct to say so.
That’s not an anti-English observation, but the the opposite.

It’s also not anti-English to suggest the obvious, that if anyone attempted to play like Shawcross has been allowed to over a prolonged period upon Hackney Marshes in London, that they wouldn’t last ‘in the game’ very long.

Even if you slightly mistime a challenge, you’ll be asked to ‘explain yourself’. Most people who play football there have jobs and can’t afford to pick up life threatening injuries on a Saturday afternoon. Any excuse of no intent or no malice will receive short thrift, I can assure you.

Why does Shawcross need so many ‘defenders’ in the media?

1. “it’s perfectly possible to break someone’s leg with a legitimate tackle” – yes it is, of course it is. Relevance? Shawcross’s tackle wasnt legitimate. He caught Ramsey. He broke his leg. What relevance whatsoever do legitimate tackles have to do with this discussion?

2. That was a typical shocking challenge that gets condoned in England all the time (and yes, Arsenal players do it as well). The player lost possession clearly and instead of trying to use skill to win the ball back simply goes in as strong as he possibly can into a challenge, feet first. That was clumsy, reckless and very, very dangerous.

3. It was the pace of Shawcross’s challenge that made it dangerous. Those are the tackles that break legs, when players go in at full pace. And Shawcross has a history of doing that. Gallas’s tackle was bad, and above I said that I would be happy to see him banned 20 games for it so long a challenges like Shawcross got far harsher penalties. But Gallas was standing still and just came down on a leg. I have NEVER seen a leg broken by a challenge like that. But tackles like Shawcross’s result in broken legs.

4. Wenger himself said he doesnt want the physicality of the PL removed. There is a massive difference between physical, committed play and dangerous play and if you cannot see the difference then there is something wrong with you.

In the immediate aftermath of the tackle there were probably some over-emotional responses but in the cold light of day (and having just googled and watched the tackle again about 20 times) it was a terrible challenge by a player who had lost the ball and wanted to get a challenge in to intimidate the opponent, knowing he’d lost the ball and that Ramsey was going to easily win possession and be past him in a flash. Shawcross’ reaction showed everything to me. If it was a genuine, clean attempt to win the ball he would have objected to the red card just a little bit and reacted stronger towards Ramsey, knowing he’d caught him badly. Instead he simply tried to do the “oh, I’m hurt as well” leaning over act and stayed well away from Ramsey, even though everyone knew it was a bad challenge. Then he wasnt surprised at all by the red card. He knew he’d been caught out. Watching Shawcross throughout the incident tells you everything you need to know about it. Only after the red card was shown did he make any attempt to see how Ramsey was.

Again, intent is irrelevant. I don’t care if he intended to do it or not. The consequence is the same.

My comment is very consistent. The reason I say he’s reckless is that he’s not moderated himself. The tackle was not even necessary.

I hope you understand that there’s a long way between doing something to hurt, and doing something without due care.

And I say it’s bad enough to not do something without showing due care.