Monday 2 September 2019

Time for the sin bin

Watching the weekend's Premier League games on tv left me feeling that deliberate foul play has become too widely accepted as part of the game.

I've written before about how Manchester City are the masters of the quick foul after a transition where they lose the ball in their opponents half (see The Most Cynical Team in the Premier League, 3 April 2018 and Ole's right - City do kick players, 24 April 2019). On Saturday's Match of the Day pundits Jermaine Jenas and Tim Cahill made the point that City centre back Laporte got injured in fouling a Brighton player running at speed in City's half because their comparatively new midfield player, Rodri, didn't "make a foul" (as people say these days) a couple of seconds earlier on the halfway line. The coverage showed an agitated Guardiola waving his hands and talking to his coaching staff. Whether he was complaining about the intercepted pass which preceded these events or the weak attempt at a tackle by Rodri wasn't clear, I admit, but I suspect more the latter. Now don't get me wrong, as a player I committed many deliberate fouls. But 40 years ago, before the phrase "taking one for the team" was coined for a professional foul leading to an inevitable yellow card to prevent a dangerous breakaway, we didn't feel particularly proud of ourselves for doing it and we didn't generally do it in our opponents half, when there was no imminent danger.*

But now it seems to be taken for granted as an accepted part of the game. I understand the logic: a foul high up the pitch is better than a last ditch tackle around your own box; the free kick holds no danger and a red card is much less likely. But when the best team behaves like this it seriously reduces the chances of any shocks and makes the outcomes tiresomely predictable. After all, when Laporte injured himself City were winning 1-0. At home. To Brighton for frig's sake. Not very edifying, though perhaps my reaction, that at least City and Laporte got some penalty since Laporte may have injured himself badly enough to miss a chunk of the season is, I admit, equally unsavoury. But the yellow card obviously doesn't provide enough punishment, since teams would rather take that that let in one goal. In a tight match that might affect the result and the points tally but, given the situation in the particular match, I was left feeling that City must think the league could be so tight it might come down to one goal this time, having been one point last season.

Now I accept that City are simply the most professional team at the moment in everything they do, just like the Liverpool team of the late 70s and early 80s were in their era. But in those days the cynicism didn't necessarily run through the whole team. Forwards generally didn't stop the opposition in their tracks after losing the ball high up the pitch, it was left to the likes of Graeme Sounness and Jimmy Case. Now everyone through the team is expected to do their duty.

The City match wasn't the only one which had me feeling this way. I watched Everton v Wolves live and was taken aback by how many niggly fouls were committed by Wolves. I thought they were a footballing team, based around a very skilful midfield. But on reflection, in most of the matches I saw  last season they were playing at home. Their coach, the grandly named Nuno Espirito Santo (which I always think of something a priest would say in church) got a lot of plaudits for his team's performances last season. At Goodison their creativity was close to zero, based around two attacking threats: the speed and power of wing back Traore (who had the beating of Everton's player of the season last year, Lucas Digne, at will in the first half) and long throw ins. But it was the number of fouls, with some fairly ruthless examples, that was most striking. The Goodison crowd got restive, clearly feeling the referee wasn't taking enough action and letting too much go even though, in the end, Wolves had 6 yellow cards, with two for Boly meaning red, compared to Everton's one yellow. It was Wolves's tenth game of the season to Everton's fifth because of the ridiculous Europa League schedule but that's no excuse. It's not just me: a friend who went to the game reported that Wolves had been "very cynical".

My own team weren't blameless. Fabian Delph gave a very impressive display in midfield leading my brother to suggest that he might "be a Gareth Barry" for us. Or, indeed, a Phil Neville, bringing a consistency of performance and mentality to the side. But Delph was Everton's yellow card, taking one for the team as a Wolves player escaped from him 10 yards inside Everton's half. The situation was indeed dangerous and I'm left feeling that matches are being decided on whether a team can be sharp enough to commit rapid foul when they lose the ball in such positions.

I'm a huge conservative when it comes to rule changes in sport. It took many years before I would admit that three points for a win had improved football, pedantically clinging to the feeling that it destroyed the logic of two points being at stake in a match - one team wins them both you or share them for a draw. I did, however, feel that introducing a red card for bringing a player down who was clear through on goal was a huge improvement, even though I was playing in the back four at the time. This was the act originally termed a "professional foul" as the cynical move-killing foul up the pitch was virtually unknown. But it's become a blight on the game and is spoiling entertainment.

These offences don't merit a red but the yellow card clearly isn't enough. While players might eventually get banned, the size of squads limits the downside. And I've seen too much of teams taking it in turns to foul an opposing team's main threat (Zaha of Crystal Palace would be an example) so they don't get cards ("but it's my first foul, ref"). Or hitting such a player with what is known as a "reducer", a tackle which leaves enough on an opponents calf or, better still, achilles to slow the victim down for the match and reduce their ability to move quickly. In David Moyes's Everton team Steven Pienaar was a player who could accelerate from a standing start and burst past players in midfield, creating overloads on the opposing defence but it became routine for him to take such a hit early in the game as other sides realised the importance of that supply line to Everton and Pienaar's unfortunate vulnerability to a knock on the ankle.

We all know these type of challenges when we see them and I don't think referees have much difficulty telling the difference between them and a late, clumsy or simply mistimed challenge. It gets my goat that players can be penalised for what, in my day, would have been seen as a perfectly fair and honest challenge on the grounds that it used "excessive force", when deliberate fouls - which are just as likely to cause injury in my view - receive limited sanction.

It's time to introduce the rugby style sin bin, with ten minutes off the pitch as well as a yellow card, for the perpetrators of deliberate, cynical fouls anywhere on the pitch to improve the ebb and flow and spectacle of the game.

* Come to think of it I was most likely to commit a deliberate foul because an opponent had just fouled one of our younger players in a way I took exception to, or just because he was an irritating twerp who'd been getting on my t*ts and so I felt it was called for. "I'm glad you did that, he's been irritating me too" a team mate once said after I'd flattened a gobby opponent. I suspect it would have been worth ten minutes on the sidelines....

1 comment:

  1. You have this spot on Phil, teams need to be punished for cynical fouls not just the players.

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