Three and in – not just another football blog

While I don’t really agree with Manchester United going into media lockdown after the Liverpool game, I can understand it. Alex Ferguson is short-tempered at the best of times and the defeat to Liverpool was painful and damaging. Coming just a few days after defeat to Chelsea and the Rooney elbow incident it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

The camel, let’s face it, wasn’t the strongest camel either. Its back was riddled with spina bifida and bone-rot. Still, I think United have done themselves, and the game, a bit of a disservice.

The more I see Jamie Carragher’s tackle the worse it gets. Nani is lucky in that he lifted his leg off the ground just before contact was made. Had he not, then I suspect the injury would have been far, far worse. The nasty gash on his leg might keep him out for a few weeks but he could easily have been out for months.

The ridiculousness of the system means that Carragher can’t be punished any further but United should have come out and condemned the tackle and how dangerous it was. Sure, Rafael made a bad tackle as well but there’s nothing to say they couldn’t have admitted that. It doesn’t take away from the fact that Carragher’s challenge is exactly the kind that the game should be ridding itself of.

That no retrospective punishment can be made is ludicrous in this era and regardless of what you might think of the United manager his words hold much weight. When we see incidents like Carragher’s challenge it’s important that they get the focus they deserve. Too often football and the media focus on the trivialities, like Nani crying, instead of the real issue.

There should be real debate on how to properly punish those kinds of dangerous tackles and on why FIFA can find the time to ban snoods while continuing to ignore video technology. By failing to publicly address those issues and going into lockdown, I think United are doing the wrong thing.

Ferguson should have immediately condemned the Carragher challenge and swallowed any criticism of the Rafael one. Then, perhaps, we’d be talking about important things, like how to prevent serious injury, instead of what appears to be another strop from the United manager.

In his Five Things We Learned From Liverpool vs Manchester United article, The Guardian’s Daniel Taylor came down harder than Jamie Carragher on Nani, who was tearfully substituted after feeling the effects of a horrific lunge from the Liverpool defender.  Taylor insists:

“Bryan Robson never cried. Roy Keane never cried. Heck, we never even saw tears from Cristiano Ronaldo, the man who wrote the book on football prima donnas.”

It makes me sick, these foreigners coming over hear with their overactive tear glands.

Oh, wait.

I like Daniel Taylor’s work, but it does seem a little perverse to me that a journalist is quicker to criticise the reaction of a badly injured player than the perpetrator of a quite horrific tackle.  It’s symptomatic of the prevailing attitudes in English football that create an environment in which challenges like this take place.

I don’t know about you but when I hear the word ‘flip’ I think of dolphins and dolphins are complete arseholes. Similarly, when I hear the word ‘flop’ I think of Terence Trent D’Arby’s second album.

Put them together and you’ve got a flip-flopper. Which is Nani. Check this from The Guardian just a couple of weeks ago:

And from today’s The Sun:

I think it’s fair to say Nani is a dolphin whose second album was unspeakably shit. Invert the pyramid on that, motherfuckers.

There’s no doubt Nani’s goal on Saturday was farcical but as much as Harry Redknapp wants to complain about Mark Clattenburg he really ought to have a stern word with his goalkeeper.

It’s the 84th minute, Spurs are 1-0 down and Gomes has the ball in his hands while Nani is throwing a tantrum on the turf behind him. Why stop? Why delay? Get on with the game as quickly as possible. If he hasn’t heard the whistle for a free kick then chances are the referee hasn’t given a free kick.

Even then he let the ball sit there watching Clattenburg gesture that it was in play. Nani reacted quickest, played to the whistle (or lack of it) and wrapped up the game for United.

Harry Redknapp, in his ever more risible Sun column, claimed:

I don’t care what anybody says, it wasn’t right in the spirit of the law.

He seems to have rather mixed his metaphors there. There might be a spirit of the game, conventions such as giving the ball back when you’ve put it out for an injury break, but the laws of the game are not open to spirit. Clattenburg gave Spurs an advantage, a chance to continue play with one of United’s players out of action having a strop about not getting a penalty.

Gomes is an experienced player who should have made the most of it. Instead he blundered and handed the advantage to Nani instead. I’m no fan of Clatteburg in general but fingers should be pointed at the goalkeeper, not the ref.

For a tough Scotsman from Govan Alex Ferguson is surprisingly sensitive.

He’s cancelled press conferences as he’s unhappy at the way the media portrayed his comments about Fernando Torres after the United Liverpool game. According to the Guardian:

A few newspapers interpreted the comments as an accusation that Torres was cheating and Ferguson does not like that, prompting his withdrawal from all press-conference duties.

What he said was:

I’ve watched it. Definitely, Torres made a meal of it, an absolute meal of it. There’s no doubt he tried to get the player sent off.

He may not have used the word cheating but that’s exactly what he meant. Some might say that he’s well within his rights not to speak to the media if he feels hard done by but he’s hardly been badly misrepresented here.

Other managers find their words twisted much more often and in much more damaging ways yet they still meet the press every week. When you add this to Ferguson’s continued refusal to speak to the BBC United fans will be hoping Sir Alex sets himself up with a Twitter account so they can hear what their manager has to say.

It’s all a bit unseemly and petty from a man who is experienced enough to know better. He’s well able to deal with silly questions from the assembled hacks, it’d be much better to see the United manager take someone to task in the public arena than seemingly hide away.

His comments about Torres held little weight considering the actions of one of his own players on that day, but he’s too experienced and too clever a man to throw a strop like this over something so trivial.

Missing a penalty is painful enough but to see the opposition go up the other end and equalise just a few minutes later … ouch.

Question though – if Alex Ferguson thought Ryan Giggs should have taken it, why didn’t he? Isn’t there an on-field pecking order for penalty takers at United?

Will Drogba play with his bionic arm? Now that Nani is gone will Ronaldo add extra stepovers? Did everyone just come to see Eboue?

These questions, and other ridiculous ones, will be answered from 2.45pm as threeandin‘s world cup live blogs continue.