In the wake of Arsenal’s stirring 3-1 win of Stoke at the weekend, two men were left to ponder very different futures. Aaron Ramsey, the most promising Welshman since Ryan Giggs was laid out on a hospital bed with a badly fractured tibia and fibula, and Ryan Shawcross, another promising youngster called into Fabio Cappello’s England squad.
The irony of this situation was that Shawcross put Ramsey in the hospital ward with a horror tackle.
Today there is already mixed opinion on the matter.
Ramsey is typically being showered with well-wishes from the football community; but there is also a lot of support for Shawcross. Stoke manager Tony Pulis has been quite vocal in his admiration for Shawcross, reiterating that there was no malice in the tackle and that Shawcross would never have intended to hurt Ramsey in the manner he did.
Seeing the incident as it happened, it isn’t as visually abhorrent as some of the leg breaking tackles as years gone by, but this should not necessarily be written off as a mere accident.
Shawcross has form.
He also broke former Gunner Francis Jeffers ankle with a tackle and was involved in another unsavoury incident with Emmanuel Adebayor, in that incident the Togo striker fared better than Ramsey and Jeffers.
Shawcross doesn’t intend to break a player’s leg, but he does intend to be aggressive and play on the edge of the rules. This weekend the rules were broken and now Ramsey faces a long journey back to fitness, one which may prove to be unsuccessful.
Shawcross, like most Stoke players are conditioned to be aggressive and use this as a strength to counter more technically superior teams. This tactic has worked a treat against a lot of sides, particularly Arsenal.
But at what point does the coach’s request to be aggressive go too far and players get hurt.
There needs to be a change in emphasis in the way EPL is played. We don’t want to see the tempo, energy and power removed from English football, but those that tackle in a manner that, even if accidental, can lead to such catastrophic consequences, need to be punished severely.
Shawcross will be hurting, but with a chance to cement a place in a World Cup squad, come June this incident will be distant memory for him.
For Ramsey, this June won’t be a chance for a holiday, but likely grueling rehabilitation, as he tries to reassemble his promising career.
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