Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and the lost art of tackling

It’s hard to find the “dirtiest” footballer in the Premier League today. In my honest opinion, under the rules that regulate the game, you can’t really describe players as dirty; they’re more just plain bad tacklers.

The art of tackling is being taken out the game and the game is slowly but surely becoming a non-contact sport for a few reasons.

Firstly the governing body of the game in Europe don’t know how to manage the game properly and as a result have brought in bad rule after bad rule. We are now in a situation were someone might commit to a tackle in the Premier League on a Saturday and not even get a talking to, but on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday in Europe he could well be sent off for the same tackle.

And there does seem to be one rule for the majority of the Premier League and a completely different rule for the so-called Top Four. And herein lies a problem.

Players with Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool do seem to be given more leeway by referees when it comes to foul play. Referees appear less prone to pulling out a yellow card for fear that they will be on the Sky Sports news every 15 minutes for daring to book, send off or give a penalty against one of the clubs who are “trying to do well in Europe” for us.

This has produced a generation of footballers who now don’t really know how to tackle; the pace of the game is such that sometimes tackles can be mistimed but the fact remains that a good tackle is now a forgotten art. The last player I can recall who could actually do it was David Batty, who finished playing some five or six years ago.

Nowadays the game has become more like a game of basketball. Players make a challenge on each other in an attempt to shoulder them off the ball, but this is now more like a defensive block in a half-court press in basketball.

If you watch a team like Liverpool who use the zonal system of marking, it really is a case of four or five men standing on the edge of the six-yard box and blocking anyone who tries to time a run into the box to meet a corner or a free-kick.

On top of that they employ two defensive midfielders whose sole task it is to sit in front of the back four and tackle, attack or block any player with or without the ball going anywhere near their back four.

The worst exponents of this are Lucas Leiva and Javier Mascherano who have plenty of ability but none of it involves tackling as we know it, but more like what they would want us to know it as - a basketball block, or trip.