I need to write this column. I saw the whole thing as it happened. I always peg one player I want to particularly follow in a match (unless I’m scoring them all), and usually a central midfield player because that’s where I like to play myself. Today, Aaron Ramsey was the guy I was watching any time he was on the screen.
He fell so fast. That’s what I remember thinking as I watched it. It seemed to me that he fell faster than normal. I don’t know if that’s true, or possible, or if that’s just how my mind processed it. It might have been that the camera was panning away, or the total lack of theatricality in the fall itself… who knows. Then they panned in on the match official who looked and immediately signaled for the stretcher.
“What is he seeing that could make him tell so fast?” I remember wondering…
Then I saw.
Arsenal players didn’t know how to deal with it, and the ones who were not there for Eduardo’s injury at Birmingham dealt with it the worst. Sol Campbell screamed at the match official, then decided he was going to go kill Shawcross. When someone got in his way, he seemed to decide that he was going to kill them. He was upset and he just wanted to hit something.
One of the most horrible parts of watching it as it happened was the player reactions. At some point Campbell has an epiphany that aggression is not going to undo what happened. You can see the helpless look of despair in his face when he stops engaging the Stoke players and puts his hands behind his head.
Stoic Thomas Vermaelen put his hands over his eyes and rocked back and forth sitting on the ground. One of his teammates (Clichy, I think) came over, put out his hand and lifted him up off the ground. An Eduardo incident veteran lending some steel and support to the guy who has brought so much to his side all season. It was, as an Arsenal supporter, one of the most affecting things I’ve ever seen on a football pitch.
Shawcross took his red card. Worked his way through a hive of angry Arsenal players and tried to apologize to Ramsey. Niklas Bendtner pushed at Shawcross, and seemed to give a look like, “this isn’t the best time to do this.” This is all interpretation, but I thought Bendtner was just trying to be protective of his player while he was getting treatment. So Shawcross left the pitch in tears. Thomas Sorenson, the Stoke City keeper ran over to his young teammate on his long, solo walk, and just put his arms around him. That might be the most affecting thing I have ever seen on the football pitch. It always amazes me how in our vast accomplishments as human beings, it is these little moments of personal thoughtfulness that can be so important. I can only guess at how much that little gesture by his teammate will mean to Shawcross for the rest of his life. Fans love to belt out “You’ll never walk alone.” Sorenson made the gesture to interrupt Shawcross’ long, lonely walk of shame to walk with him a few steps and support him in front of the whole world.
There will be numerous things said about the incident. A wide range of emotional reactions. And believe me, I have felt them all today. I want to share what I think, not because I cannot understand people who would appeal for more or less leniency, but because I can’t get certain images out of my mind and writing about it is helping.
- Stoke City – Stoke City have been all-class since the incident happened. Tony Pulis’ comments were the very model of dignity and respect. He did not take any questions about possible errors in officiating, he did not try to downplay the severity of the injury. He supported his player but not the tackle. Like I mentioned above, there was a brief minute or two where Arsenal’s players reacted to the challenge with murderous intent. I thought they were classy in letting this madness wash over Arsenal, and letting Arsenal deal with what they needed to deal with. At first I thought Pulis stormed off because of his exchange with Fabergas… on reflection, I think he deserves the benefit of the doubt. What are you supposed to say to Arsen Wenger in that situation? I think the dignified thing to do is to shake hands and quickly get out of his way so he can deal with what he needs to deal with.
- Ryan Shawcross – I think the tackle was not malicious in intent. I think it deserved a red card. I think it doesn’t deserve a suspension. Shawcross did not mean to injury Aaron Ramsey. He came through so hard because he had thrown himself into winning the ball and by the tie the ball wasn’t there, Shawcross had no ability to pull out of the challenge. Making a tackle where you lose bodily control, regardless of intent, is subject to a red card by rule for the express purpose of preventing things like this from happening. I do not agree with those who say the severity contributed to the read as a matter of law. Is it true that officials don’t usually send off people for dangerous challenges unless dangerous harm is inflicted? Yes. Is that the rule? No. So while officials may tend to be more lenient than the letter of the law, I think the red card was deserved.
- Suspension? No. This challenge is football’s version of an unfortunate car accident. Despite the fact this seems to repeatedly happen to Arsenal, and I end up repeatedly watching some of my favorite footballers with legs pointing in unusual directions, my head tells me its coincidence even as my heart wants some sort of revenge as a means to set the world right. Like Sol Campbell on the pitch, I have calmed down enough to see inflicting pain on others won’t make things different, better, or even fair. Shawcross, for what it’s worth, seems in pieces. Shawcross’ England call-up will be forever twinned with the same day he made this challenge. He has to live with that forever – and truth be told, it’s a very harsh penalty for a challenge that looks unintentional.
- Pulis and Cesc: They are both upset. Given the horror injuries to Diaby, Eduardo and Ramsey over the past five years, it is easy to understand why Arsenal are upset. It is easy to see why Cesc would run by the Stoke bench after he made a bad challenge himself (and it was a very bad challenge by him) and “shhhsh” them as if to say, “Really? You’re upset? I can describe the appearance of two of my teammates bones in graphic detail and you think you have a right to be upset?” Let me say again, it was a terrible challenge by Cesc, and the one foul doesn’t justify the other one. Cesc is in the wrong on this one because his head is not in the right place. Can you blame him? Well, if I was the official, I would have given him either a yellow for the challenge or for the “shhhsh-ing,” so I guess I could blame him within the laws of the game. But in his mind, I think he was fighting for Aaron Ramsey. Pulis, in yelling back was fighting for the safety of his players that Cesc apparently felt semi-entitled to take out from behind whenever he felt like, so no blame there. Both got in a verbal scrap on the touch line trying to protect their own in the heat of the game. Fair enough.
- Arsene’s post-match: Arsene Wenger’s comments are the comments of a person tired of watching this happen to his players. But I don’t think there’s any conspiracy here. Just horrible, horrible luck. What Ballack did today at Man City was shocking. He was wound up and out of control all match. I didn’t see anything like that at the Britannia Stadium today. What I did see, especially before the red card were a lot of collisions, a lot of physical play, and a lot of people from both sides helping each other up and giving each other pats on the back. Look… it is fair enough to play physical football and get stuck in. I would go so far as to it’s also fair enough to try to wind up a team by playing physical and being jerks about it if you think that they are emotionally frail. Stoke did not even go that far. Their system is predicated on tough, disciplined football. Arsenal players, management and supporter’s cannot look at every blue-collar team and instantly associate them with Allardyce’s Bolton squads or Hughes’ Blackburn Rovers. It’s not fair, and in this case it’s not true.
So that’s it. Now that I have committed all my thoughts to paper, I feel better. While the ghastly image has hardly been removed from my mind like Premiership highlight snuffed out by youtube censors, it is losing its death grip on my system. I wanted to write this to get past the shock, but I also wanted to write it while I still felt shocked. I didn’t write this feeling angry, or gutted, or helpless. I wrote this while I was feeling a swirl of lots of different things. Football can run you through the gamut of emotions, and this can generate a plethora of our most familiar cliches about the game. Rather than talk about this as a lesson about how there are things “bigger than the game,” I wanted to write a profound sense I had of the opposite direction. Football is at its most profound is when it is at its most personal: when it reminds us that it matters to us when things happen; and it matters how and why we feel about them. This is what I’m feeling right now.
Get better Aaron Ramsey. We’ll keep the #16 shirt waiting for you in our hopes and prayers.
Written By Steven
Maloney
(58 Posts) |
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