Why clichés could be more dangerous than two-footed tackles

There is a successful Twitter account which brilliantly collates the clichés in football. They are provided by managers, players, pundits and fans alike. From 'come-and-get-me pleas' to 'hijacked' moves, January is a month in which football provides plenty of material for the internet to chuckle about.

It is when the lines between cliché and law become blurred that problems begin to arise. On Sunday afternoon, we saw this in abundance.

There are two offences in football where popular interpretation departs from fact on a regular basis; the forceful tackle and the isolated defender hauling down an attacker on a goalward path.

Laurent Koscielny's dismissal in Sunday's second fixture was entirely correct, as was Howard Webb's decision to give Martin Skrtel a yellow card for halting Danny Welbeck. The concerning thing is that many of the people employed to explain why they were correct did not know how to.

The words of commentary teams and pundits find their way onto the council pitches of the UK with regularity. When a Sunday League footballer (who, as ever, could have made it...) screams the words “he was the last man, ref!”, remember to address your letters of complaint to Niall Quinn.

'The last man' is a notion which comes up regularly, yet has absolutely no place in the football rulebook. It is the clearest example of those around football saying something incorrect so frequently that it begins to carry some weight.

This isn't the greatest problem area though. The 'denial of a clear goalscoring opportunity' is a relatively simple decision to make and it almost always involves more than one official. The presence of a covering defender is a factor, but not the primary justification for a decision either way.

The interpretation of tackling is a far more significant problem in the game. The judgement of a tackle usually falls on the referee alone and in the short moments he has to make his decision, there is a worry that the same clichés that flood from the mouths of onlookers whirl around his head.

The two phrases of concern are 'studs showing' and 'two-footed'. Both are worthy of consideration, but at no point do they figure in the rulebook. When Niall Quinn, Mark Bright or Andy Townsend justifies a referee's dismissal with one of these lines, football as we knew it slips further away.

Vincent Kompany's red card against Arsenal was not the first time that the big defender has been a victim of the fear that now surrounds the strong tackle. Nobody wants to see another Eduardo or Ramsey, but prevention methods should not harm the game.

Strong tackling is not consigned to the archives in the same folder as the legal back-pass or the quarter-tonne boot. The names of players who spent their careers charging into 50/50 challenges before lifting the vanquished foe from the turf have not been gone from the game for too long.

Take Paul Ince and Roy Keane. Modern football would be terrified by their style of play, but did their methods leave opponents with shattered bones each week? Only when they wanted it to.

It is too late to halt the changing nature of our game. The key phrases are already a part of the pundit's vernacular and, if we are to speculate, the officials who are employed to enforce the rules too.

Look at the 'studs showing' line. Where did that come from? It came from challenges like Keane's on Alf-Inge Haaland where the studs sunk into the Manchester City midfielder's knee. It also stems from tackles where a player's challenge goes over the ball and strikes an opponent. Simply, it was a phrase used to differentiate between kicking somebody with the leather of the boot and planting the studs into them. In all of the examples, the ball was rarely a factor.

In today's game, however, the studs are said to be showing a number of times per game. Even when the studs are attached to a boot that is sliding along the grass, they are showing and people react as if Nigel de Jong is kung-fu kicking people again.

If the studs are planted in the ground as you attempt a sliding challenge, two things are true. Firstly, you are not sliding. As a result of the 'not sliding tackle', the chances of suffering injury are greatly increased.

It is possible to perform a strong and safe tackle regardless of what direction your studs are pointing. If we are going to become so offended when a player goes to ground in a head-to-head challenge, we have effectively outlawed it already.

Kompany's red card has been overturned by the FA, but still there are people who are deeply offended by the notion of the two-footed tackle, despite the second foot hardly being involved and the ball being won long before Wilshere arrived at the scene. “But both feet were off the ground,” they say, “so the rules say he had to be sent off.”

They do not. There are three categories of illegal tackle in the rulebook. The 'careless' tackle merits nothing more than the award of a free-kick. A 'reckless' tackle would involve the disregard of another player's safety and should result in a yellow card. Finally, a tackle that uses 'excessive force' can be punished with a red card because it exceeds the level of force that is necessary and is in danger of injuring an opponent.

There are four types of tackle if you include another category; the legal tackle. A tackle which uses both feet could actually fall into any of these categories, yet the majority of fans would immediately place it into the most severe.

'Two-footed tackles' became an official term of criticism due to tackles like Steven Gerrard's on Gary Naysmith in the Merseyside derby. That was a dangerous two-footed tackle. Kompany's was not. It wasn't even close.

Comparisons between football and rugby do not tend to meet with approval from either side, but the oval ball game is far superior in the way it categorises the severity of offences.

In football, a two-footed tackle or one with the studs visible could be anything from legal to dangerous. There is no such room for interpretation in rugby. If you turn an opponent beyond the horizontal, you will be leaving the field of play. While football asks officials to interpret a challenge using particularly vague definitions, we need to stop throwing the ill-informed clichés about.

They have crept into the consciousness of everybody involved in the game and as a result, the strong tackle is a dying breed. Very few people apply the rules to the context of a challenge and search for a precedent instead. No two tackles are identical and to think that the black and white theory of rugby laws can be applied to football is foolish.

Football is evolving and our constant outrage at the tackle is one of the driving forces. While nobody wants to see players injured, we are likely to eradicate the 50/50 challenge all together unless we stop allowing the clichés to overpower the rules.

Why Jordan Henderson makes Liverpool's midfield work

Those involved in the Gestalt School of Psychology knew little about football, but you suspect the emphasis on the collective would have struck a chord with Brendan Rodgers. The late nineteenth century school is often summarised using a famous Aristotle line: 'The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.' 

For Rodgers, nothing could be more apt.

Liverpool's midfield has been something of a conundrum this season. There are three positions and six able players to fill them. That the midfield three struggled to function with a variety of combinations throughout the first half of the season should have been one of Rodgers' greatest concerns. The need for attacking reinforcements is obvious and the manager has already started to work on constructing a front-line to suit his style.

There will be no strengthening in the midfield for the players are already there. An England captain, a Welshman who understands the system inside out, a Brazilian regular, a 24-year-old Bundesliga 'Player of the Year' and two young England internationals are all Rodgers needs, but the fluency that they should have been able to achieve has not been a permanent feature of the Liverpool midfield. It has been there on occasions, but missing every bit as frequently.

The problems have occurred in transition. The Rodgers mantra demands the ball to be pressed when it is lost. However, all too often this pressing hasn't been done as a group. One or two press, others go halfway to where they need to be and three quick passes can expose Liverpool's back four. Go back through all of the goals that Rodgers' side have conceded this season and the space between midfield and defence will become a recurring theme.

The two fixtures in 2013 have revealed something that may come as a shock. The least fashionable of footballers may be the solution to the problem.

Jordan Henderson is a footballing price-tag. He showed some promise when deployed centrally in the closing weeks of the Dalglish reign and has been building on that under Rodgers, but is constantly compared to the fee Liverpool paid.

There is no disguising that Henderson's first season at Anfield was a torrid one at times. Signed for an inflated fee that he had no control of and asked to play in a position that suits few of his strengths, it is no wonder the 22-year-old looked out of place.

The Jordan Henderson who captains England's U21 side has often been a confusing sight for Liverpool fans. Even during his toughest days at Anfield, England's Henderson flourished. He was at the heart of his team's passing, barked orders at his team-mates and shone as a box-to-box midfielder. He would then go back to the right side of Liverpool's midfield and the timidity would come over him again.

Henderson may have been a potential makeweight for Clint Dempsey in the summer, but his manager would be ill-advised to dispose of him in January.

Liverpool's two games in 2013 have brought 3-0 victories and Henderson has been heavily involved in both. He refused to allow illness to prevent him playing at QPR, before earning a second start in the win against Sunderland. The point of the midfield triangle may not have been where many expected him to make his greatest impact, but Henderson deserves to continue there. He may not have been a young Bundesliga sensation or have Jonjo Shelvey's goalscoring record, but he makes Liverpool's midfield work.

The great traits that Rodgers is associated with are passing and pressing. It is the latter than Henderson does better than anybody at the club.

Henderson has many improvements to make in his game but there is one thing that he can do without fail – run. His work-rate is exceptionally high and has a positive effect on those behind him. Liverpool have often been caught with two of the attacking trio pressing the ball, but with a big gap to the midfield. This allows opponents to play through Liverpool and find themselves with a great expanse of grass to attack.

Henderson is often the player pressing highest up the pitch. He combines with Luis Suarez to cover the central pass and both wide attackers push on to prevent the isolated centre-back from using his full-backs. As such, Liverpool have regained a great deal of cheap possession in the past two games.

The former Sunderland midfield also has the mobility to get around the midfield. He can press the defence and still recover his position in the central three if the resultant clearance falls to an opponent. It comes as no surprise that Steven Gerrard has had two of his best games of the season with Henderson at the head of the midfield. Henderson does the leg work, Lucas or Joe Allen do the scrapping in front of the back four and Gerrard is given a greater freedom. He can play deeper and look to penetrate as he did for Luis Suarez's second against Sunderland in the knowledge that Henderson will not be far away from the front three. Alternatively, Gerrard can make a run beyond the attack in the knowledge that Henderson has the mobility to cover behind him. When Lucas, Allen and Gerrard were playing as a combination, there was always a doubt as to who could cover the ground if needed. With Henderson involved, the midfield functions in transition with far greater comfort.

The other benefit of Henderson's mobility is the increased threat it poses on the counter-attack. Against both QPR and Sunderland there were instances when Liverpool broke from a corner and ended up with at least three players tearing towards the opposition penalty area. Suarez is often the architect, turning a man on halfway and driving forward. Sterling is usually there too, his arms flying all over the place as he makes up the ground. The third player in the attack is usually Henderson. Watch Suarez's first goal against Sunderland. The Uruguayan may take the opportunity without looking for a team-mate, but both Sterling and Henderson are there waiting for a pull-back. If he keeps finding such spaces as Liverpool break clear after regaining possession, it shouldn't be too long before he adds goals to his game.

Liverpool have been working with Dr Steve Peters since Rodgers' arrival at Anfield. Peters was a vital component of British Cycling's success and a host of successful athlete's attribute part of their success to him. It wouldn't surprise me if Henderson had paid him a visit. He has a different demeanour to the character who pulled on the Liverpool shirt last season. He isn't looking to pass responsibility elsewhere anymore. By doing so, Henderson was sacrificing his greatest strengths to avoid making mistakes. With a little self-belief, there is a suggestion both at club and international level that there is a player hiding in there.

With Lucas and Joe Allen both requiring injury management through a busy schedule, Henderson should be the constant in the Liverpool midfield. Shelvey and Allen have both played more games than they are used to and in both cases, it appears to have caught up with them a little. Henderson's form allows Shelvey to recover, while Allen and Lucas can alternate playing time as Liverpool negotiate a tricky period.

Liverpool face their greatest tests of the season in the next month. Visits to Old Trafford, the Emirates and the Etihad will be a true measure of how far Rodgers' side have come. Having stumbled upon an advanced midfielder who brings the best out of those in partnership with him, it would be a big call for Rodgers to leave the ever-improving Henderson out.

Henderson now has 50 Liverpool league appearances under his belt. For the first time in that period, he is showing why he could be remembered as more than a transfer fee.