Very untypical of Patrick Bamford, nobody's tough guy, nice, intelligent bloke, made a big mistake going down like that .......... but what do you do once you are down there? You've done it! You can't really get up and say sorry ref, he wanted to hit me but he missed. It was heat of the moment stuff and everybody would re-wind if they could.
As to the incident - see Jack Lester for Chesterfield against Droylsden in the FA Cup - much funnier. We stood back and gave them a goal and they still continued over-dosing on mardy tablets.
All this pretend fair-play of putting the ball out when a player has hardly been touched and starts producing ectoplasm is just so much sham. It'll be fair play when, like snooker, a defender holds up his hand to the referee and calls "Penaty ref' I've handled that!" Unless and until players are prepared to recognise it is only a game and part of what it is about is playing fair ..... then not much will change. And big money will do its best to prevent it becoming a game again.
As for Bielsa, he proved himself a better man than any around him. He did the right thing at a potentially enormous cost to his club. He deserves credit. I only wish what he'd said about the English game were anything like true.
Play hard. Don't moan whatever the opposition do. Play to the whistle. If a player looks badly hurt, let common sense kick in and find the quickest way to stop the game ....... otherwise let the ref' handle it and if she/he's waving play-on that's what you do.
As to the incident - see Jack Lester for Chesterfield against Droylsden in the FA Cup - much funnier. We stood back and gave them a goal and they still continued over-dosing on mardy tablets.
All this pretend fair-play of putting the ball out when a player has hardly been touched and starts producing ectoplasm is just so much sham. It'll be fair play when, like snooker, a defender holds up his hand to the referee and calls "Penaty ref' I've handled that!" Unless and until players are prepared to recognise it is only a game and part of what it is about is playing fair ..... then not much will change. And big money will do its best to prevent it becoming a game again.
As for Bielsa, he proved himself a better man than any around him. He did the right thing at a potentially enormous cost to his club. He deserves credit. I only wish what he'd said about the English game were anything like true.
Play hard. Don't moan whatever the opposition do. Play to the whistle. If a player looks badly hurt, let common sense kick in and find the quickest way to stop the game ....... otherwise let the ref' handle it and if she/he's waving play-on that's what you do.