The Tackle on Eduardo was as bad as it gets and really was as terrible as it looked , and it has to be said it been coming for quite a while now. I wrote an article a few years ago predicting at that time that we were going to sustain terrible injuries because of this perception about kicking Arsenal players and this is now our third major injury from this type of tackle

So, according to the experts to stop Arsenal you have to kick them to stop them. Well they certainly got that right didn’t they, You hear TV pundits like Shearer, Hanson, Green, Pearce to name just a few and just about any old pro who thinks he is saying something interesting say you can't let Arsenal play football.

Just what the hell does that mean don’t let them play football? For Christ sake, after all it is a game of FOOTBALL and the experts saying every week that you need to stop Arsenal, These so called experts reiterate these tactics that are needed by Arsenals opposition every time before every match, let Arsenal know you are here, get an early one in, hit them hard on the first tackle, we have to be physical, hit them hard again, don’t let them pass the ball around, shut them down, they don’t like physical games. Even on Saturday you heard the pundits say you need to stop Fabregas playing and McLeish said he was going to apply different tactics, referring to the physical nature they were going to adopt.

There is nothing wrong with physical play at all, in fact it is essential to the british game, however the line is crossed when this type of incident happens. As I have previously said this is the 3nd terrible tackle and long term injury we have sustained in recent years, Diaby was at the wrong end of a horror tackle from Brown of Sunderland which kept him of  football for a year as well as the Champions League final in Paris a couple of weeks later, David Prutton took out Pires at Southampton and then when asked why he made such a horrific tackle he accused Pires of taking dive and then saying that he is known on TV as a diver, a name what he was given to him by TV pundits after he went down and won a penalty against Portsmouth, actually there was contact but it was slight, but there was contact.

The TV pundits must be more responsible with their analysis and opinions and reflect a match properly, sometimes they  are just to preoccupied with their own agenda’s and are looking to keep the old pals syndicate going instead of doing the job they are paid for, to analyse the match and to give an informed opinion. When you hear a pundit say that a player meant to do something or say he did not mean to do that, how on earth do they know?  Have they got psychic powers or something? So how can they get away with these unfounded speculation and still think they are right.

In the furore of Saturdays match William Gallas should have pulled his team together when Eduardo was getting treatment and used his experience to explain that they need to get focused and to spur the team on. Quite clearly some of the players who saw the injury were visibly shaken and Gallas needed to gather the team and talked to them and reassured them, He has probably watched the match again by now and probably caught MOTD, it is not to often I agree with Hanson and co but I did Saturday evening about how we needed a leader on the pitch to set the example not acting the way Gallas did at the end of the match.