andy_g » Thu May 10, 2012 3:00 pm wrote:i'm going to go a bit against the grain here and suggest that essien wasn't in any way trying to deliberately injure carroll. it looks nasty for sure, and was clumsy to put it mildly, and could easily have ended in a broken leg. but look at carroll when essien starts his lunge - he's not actually in front of or shielding the ball at all. by the time essien is in mid air carroll has put his left leg out and essien even looks like he's trying to adjust a little to pull out. despite whether there was any intention or not it should have been a straight red for being badly timed and dangerous play.
essien has previous as we all know, and can be a dirty fecker. but seeing as his own form and capability has fallen since a couple of horrific injuries of his own, i doubt that he'd go in to deliberately injure another professional so badly. i'm probably going to get dog's for this but its the way i see it.
I can't agree. Essiens right leg is in the tackle. The left leg comes in later, after any bodily positional movment from Andy, and Essiens studs come straight down, full force. I see no effort to pull out of it. That's my intepretation of course. There's been a debate around for a number of years as to when a footballing challenge becomes an actual assault. For me, Essiens tackle is just that, assault, and he should be charged as such.
