Stop the football killers

Arsene Wenger gave a vigorous defence of his Arsenal team at yesterday's pre-match Fenerbahce press conference.

Wenger's intention was obvious, to consolidate unity within the camp, fostering a them-against-us environment that will hopefully see the players' redoubling their efforts to salvage the future of Arsenal's season in the face of Saturday's vital home fixture against Manchester Utd.

For Wenger, it's all or nothing now. If Arsenal lose on Saturday and struggle in corresponding fixtures later this month, there's not really much left he can say to defend his players' mental inadequacies. Wengers played the joker in the pack, but there's a price to pay, as he's left himself 100% exposed to counter-criticism if his team failed to step-up to the plate.

Was Wenger right in his criticism of Stoke City's players? Partially. The tackle on Adebayor by Ryan Shawcross was unecessary, as was the Bacary Sagna ankle tread. Neither were warranted, and I don't like to see this kind of tackle under any circumstance.

Meawhile, the tackle from behing by Rory Delap on Theo Walcott was not intended to hurt Walcott, but it was malicious - Delap made no attempt to play the ball, he just wanted to stop Walcott by any means. I don't buy Delap's defence that the tackle was mistimed, that's an unprovable lie.

Although not malicious, I would give a red card for that type of offence, similar to when John Terry was sent off for deliberately pulling back Manchester City striker Jo several weeks ago. It's serious foul play, for which a one-match ban should suffice.

Where Wenger is wrong, however, is to suggest that the Stoke tackles were deliberate attempts to injure players. They weren't, they were deliberate attempts to stop players - maybe even intimidate players, not seriously injure them. Unfortunately though, like all teams, Arsenal are hardly immune from dishing out bad tackles themselves. Eboue, Hoyte, Diaby and even Fabregas have all put in some dreadful tackles over the last 12 months, some of which were as bad if not a lot worse than what we saw by Stoke City on Saturday afternoon.

As already implied, Wenger's comments had nothing to do with Stoke, but more a last-ditch attempt to re-ignite his team's rapidly evaporating fighting spirit.

On a different, but closely-related, note. It's clear to me that Wenger, much like UEFA president Michel Platini, would like to see tackling almost completely eradicated from the game. I don't often agree with Platini, whose previous campaign slogans have included ‘giving football back to the footballers’ - but I do agree with his implication that football should go one step further than banning the tackle from behind and look seriously into banning tackling altogether - by that I mean any tackle wherby a player goes to ground.

I am a football purist, and believe that football should be as non-contact a sport as possible; based almost entirely on skill and technique. Whilst it may be exciting to watch a hefty, aggressive tackle, which no doubt fires-up the crowd; somewhat dampening their blood lust, I simply don't see the actualy necessity for it.

Furthermore, I often find that petty fouling ruins the flow of far too many football matches. I believe players should be encouraged to stay on their feet at all times, the result of which would virtually eradicate serious injury to opponents, as if that's a bad thing? Shirt pulling and other other deliberate attempts to gain unfair physical advantage should be punished with streams of yellow cards and penalties.

What sort of quality of competition this would create within a league is open to question. It may well widen the gap between the haves and have nots, in which case coaches will be forced to adjust their training methods, putting tactics and technique above physical negation as their number one priority.

There are other ways of preventing players from playing without tackling, Gilberto Silva - the invisble wall as he was known - was a master of harrying, hustling and blocking. Silva rarely put a bad tackle in and rarely went to ground - he was a true sportsman. Maybe the Brazilian is the template defensive midfielder that the sport should move towards replicating.

One thing's for sure, anything is better than watching a 90-minute football match where continually-cynical petty fouls, substitutions, time wasting and set pieces take up 90% of the spectacle - leaving very little time devoted to actually enjoying footballers playing football.

Whether this will happen is debatable - probably doubtful, but I support Platini and Wenger in principle and hope that football can move further in this direction by at least trialling some non-contact matches in the lower leagues, presuming they haven't already.

Why encourage and reward the football killers, whose only way to earn a living is to stop skilful footballers by any means, fair or foul? Usually foul. It seems all back to front to me.