Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Henry urges more thought

Wolves midfielder Karl Henry has called for greater scrutiny over mistimed challenges rather than immediate condemnation.
Tackling has become a hot topic of debate this season as several challenges have caused injury, while the increased media spotlight has put greater focus on individual incidents.
Henry has been involved in a couple himself, firstly at Fulham in September, when Bobby Zamora's leg buckle under an innocuous sliding tackle by Henry, which saw the England striker sidelined until February.
The following month Henry upended Wigan's Jordi Gomez with a late challenge which saw the 27-year-old receive a straight red card.
Henry apologised for that challenge and accepted he deserved to be sent off, but he insists some challenges are merely mistimed by a matter of seconds, such is the speed of Premier League players.
The issue continues to divide opinion, with Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp claiming Sunderland's Lee Cattermole challenge on Luka Modric last week was over-zealous and should have been punished, while Sunderland manager Steve Bruce believes it was fair because Cattermole won the ball first.
Henry admits he has questioned if he has been going over the top but the ex-Stoke man has urged critics to take time to consider whether tackles are actually as dangerous as they first appear before making judgement.
"I've doubted myself," he said. "I put on a game from about seven years ago. We played Nottingham Forest at Stoke and I put in plenty of tackles that day.
"I just wanted to check that my game has not altered. And my game hasn't altered at all - I've always put in lots of tackles, it's the way I've played and nothing's changed.
"In the Championship you see tackle after tackle and there's no problem with it. At this level there seems to be a problem with slightly mistimed tackles.
"The pace of the game is something that's a massive point. Players are so fast and so strong. People are so big, powerful and strong. Something that's slightly mistimed ends up with someone doing a flip and it looks so bad.
"It almost looks malicious and that's not the case a lot of the time. People have got to look past someone being flipped in the air or someone not winning the ball and see was it deliberate? Was it malicious? And a lot of the time it isn't.
"Sometimes [tackles] look a lot worse than they are and it's a difficult job for the referees to judge at the time: was that deliberate? Was it high? Could it cause some serious damage?
"You just don't know until after the game.
"The tackle at Fulham on Bobby Zamora, a lot of their players were happy with the tackle. It was only at half-time when they realised the severity of it that it becomes a huge issue."
Wolves were condemned following their 1-1 draw with Newcastle in August, in which they appeared to target Joey Barton and had seven players booked.
But five Newcastle players were also shown a yellow card and Henry believes the criticism was unfair.
"There were so many tackles in that game from both parties," he said. "I think the neutrals would agree it was just a whole-hearted performance from both teams.
"Joey Barton put in plenty of tackles himself - so did the rest of their players and so did we.
"[The TV pundits] just picked out a small portion of the tackles that went on in that game and decided to make it [seem like] a hate campaign on Joey Barton that day, which just wasn't the case."
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