In Saturday’s pulsating Merseyside Derby, Liverpool superstar Virgil Van Dijk suffered a horrific ACL injury which may rule him out for the remainder of the season. The injury was as a result of an extremely reckless tackle by Everton and England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford, who bizarrely managed to escape punishment due to the Liverpool man being in an offside position. The incident has been met with outrage by both the media and rival fans alike, with calls for Pickford to face an extended ban and even death threats having been received. This begs the question as to whether people are judging the tackle itself, or is a worrying lack of understanding of the game leading people to instead react purely on the resultant injury and the profile of the player it has happened to?

Van Dijk is heralded as the best defender on the planet and is integral to Liverpool’s trophy laden past two years. The fact that he has such a long term injury is huge news in that it is a major blow to the Premier League favourites, and he plays for a club who receive colossal levels of interest with lots of the modern sports media having Liverpool allegiances. Liverpool have asked for a review of the VAR conduct following the game, and rightly so after the failure to send Pickford off and other questionable decisions. The fact that the referees have not sent him off has only heightened the outrage; one would have to question whether there would be such coverage if the red card would have been issued.

Pickford’s tackle was extremely reckless but there were no clear signs of malice or intent. He approached Van Dijk at pace and was extremely clumsy in going over the top of the ball, his momentum following through Van Dijk’s knee. The correct decision was clearly to issue the red card, and him receive a 3 match ban for a straight red. Now, while the tackle was extremely reckless, it was the severity of injury which separates the incident from other similar reckless tackles that take place in the Premier League.

On the left is Pickfords tackle which went unpunished with VVD suffering a terrible injury, a similar tackle made on the right by Lewis Dunk on Gary Cahil resulted in a red card but no injury

Just the following day a similar tackle took place in the Crystal Palace vs Brighton derby. In the dying minutes of the game, Brighton captain Lewis Dunk lunged off of his feet over the ball and impacted Gary Cahill low down on his shin. This tackle was very similar in that the player was both out of control and off his feet, while being over eager to spread his body towards the ball. The referee correctly sent the player off and he will receive a 3 match ban. Cahill was struggling until the final whistle but was lucky enough not to suffer a serious injury as Van Dijk had, and as a result of this and the fact he was correctly sent off, there was no outrage in the media at the recklessness of the tackle.

On Sky Sports Graeme Souness described Pickford’s tackle by claiming: “That was an assault, that wasn’t a tackle. That was an assault.”, while on TalkSport Mark Bosnich has called for a punishment in which Pickford should not be allowed to play again until Van Dijk is fit again. These two statements together with the rumoured petition from Liverpool fans to make the FA take retrospective action against Pickford, illustrate the outrage but also how crazily over the top some of the reactions have been about the incident. Both as a standalone incident and in comparison, to others. It also demonstrates why such refereeing inconsistencies are creating a problem with the game.

A tackle should be analysed independent of the resultant injury. There is a tendency that people analyse how bad a tackle is purely by how severely a player has been injured from the tackle. The reality is that an injury depends on not just the tackle itself but also the momentum involved, the pace at which it happens together with the balance and landing of the fouled player. Football is a free flowing game played at a high pace, when slowed down by the cameras a tackle will always look worse than it is in real time.

The player making the bad tackle is not in control over what the resultant injury may be, which is why it is important that reckless tackles that do not fully connect or manage to injure a player, must be punished with the same severity as those that connect. There is a major inconsistency with how this is refereed at present and this certainly contributes to how tackles are perceived.

Gomes screamed in agony as players from both teams ended in tears and praying for his welfare on the pitch

The intent to injure someone should always be taken into consideration in addition to whether they have endangered another players welfare. Andre Gomes suffered a horrendous ankle break and dislocation in November 2019, the severity of the injury left players in tears and praying for him on the pitch. The tackle was a clumsy late trip by Son which while ill-timed, looked fairly innocuous with no intent to injure. The clip led to Gomes getting his ankle stuck underneath him and colliding with Serge Aurier, subsequently snapping his ankle in an incident which visibly sickened the players on the pitch. The referee brandished a yellow card which was probably the correct decision for the offence of the trip, this was however upgraded to a red by VAR due to the severity of the injury. This was harsh as it was the landing that determined the severity of the injury and not the tackle itself. Son was bombarded with abuse for the tackle when in reality it was the collision with Aurier and the twist of the ankle that caused the damage. It is another example of how wrongly the severity of an injury has determined the reaction rather than the intent and the tackle itself.

Gomes stumbles as he approaches Aurier and his ankle cracks underneath him as he impacts into the tackle. Son had tripped him sending him off balance initially.

There are far worse tackles that are premeditated with the intent to injure or at least stop a player forcefully whether out of malice or frustration. From the evidence I have mentioned, the problem with current decision making and coverage is that if these tackles do not result in an injury the outrage is far less. In recent weeks, Tottenham defeated Manchester United 6-1 with Luke Shaw committing a disgraceful premeditated kick on Lucas Moura. The fact that Moura did not land badly or suffer an injury subsequently led somehow to him not being cautioned. This paired with the fact that unlike with the Pickford incident, the decision did not affect the final result led to no further action. A similar situation occurred when Giovani Lo Celso trod on Cesar Azplicueta’s shin but escaped punishment in February, Chelsea winning comfortably lessened the subsequent coverage.

The left image shows Luke Shaw’s premeditated swipe at Lucas who was running at speed away from him, the horrified reaction of staff from both teams in the right picture illustrates the severity of the tackle

The Premier League is loved for its high pace and intensity, particularly in derby fixtures. The pace of the game lends itself to the occasional rash tackle which will always look worse when slowed down. There is however absolutely no disputing that Pickford’s tackle was reckless and he deserves to receive a ban. A premeditated tackle such as Shaw’s however, should not be ignored due to the lack of severe injury caused, just as Pickford should not be hounded purely due to the unfortunate injury caused. We football fans beg for fire and emotion from the players and sometimes unfortunate events will occur and should be punished accordingly, the tackles we must eradicate are those that are premeditated not mis timed tackles which can be a bi product of our game. The referee must be calm enough to judge a decision based on the incident and be able to remove emotion from the decision; whether a player is lucky enough to escape injury doesn’t affect the severity of the tackle.