Good defence is as much an art as good attack

James Lawton says what I say about The Tackle that Broke Beauty:

"The trouble is not, as so many within the game say, that football is a contact sport that would be hopelessly diminished if defenders were not allowed to tackle with some force. Good defence is as much an art as good attack; for confirmation you only have to look at Paolo Maldini or, for that matter, Rio Ferdinand and Gaël Clichy on one of their better days."

Lawton points to not only Arsene Wenger but also Alex Ferguson who complains about teams using cheating physical play to compete with great teams that play great football:

"Wenger's contention, and it is one that has been loudly voiced this season by the only manager in England who can compete at his level of football skill, Sir Alex Ferguson, is that teams struggling for survival in the top flight too often attempt to kick and intimidate their way out of trouble. This is especially so when they are faced by teams who have got to the top essentially by playing football. It was a matter, for example, of much civic pride in Bolton that the blood of the old Gunners ran cold whenever they entered the Reebok Stadium. It was there, incidentally, that Ferguson was most outraged this season when his team surrendered three points in a storm of ferocious and, some would insist, outrageous tackling by Bolton."

One solution to this problem of cheating physical football (to repeat: a problem much worse than diving), is to simply reduce the number of teams in the Premiership and include only those players and managers who can compete at the highest level.

But then that would leave the league with even fewer English players...and managers.

Source > 26.02.2008