Great point by Ian Tanner, mentioned in Saturday evening’s piece on the Stoke game. I was at the Britannia Stadium last season and wondered how the hell Shawcross got away with the Adebayor tackle.

For me these injuries are a direct result of the worst ever refereeing performance by Mike Riley when "kicking Arsenal" became an Olympic sport. The Old Trafford game in October 2004 which ended Reyes career with Arsenal and the thuggery that the Mancs got away with that day was the blueprint for all teams wanting to beat Arsenal. Had Riley reffed the game to the rules, Man U would have finished with eight, possibly seven men and then the FA should have thrown the book at Ferguson and his sycophantic gang. Eduardo's injury was as a direct result of that day - as was yesterday's ‘let ‘em know you’re there’ tackle. Stoke has a plaque somewhere in their complex with the words for visiting teams "this is going to hurt", so when you send out a team to hurt the opposition you are never more than a tackle away from disaster and on Saturday disaster struck again for Arsenal.

It's the cowards at the FA who have created the Araldite, Pull-this and McLeish brand of football and they are the real culprits in this recurring horror story. Ramsey's injury would probably not happened if the politicians in Soho Square had acted in accordance with their own rules and thrown the book at ‘Red Nose’ the morning after United kicked Arsenal to pieces in 2004. I used to believe in ‘rough justice’ but with Shawcross now in the England squad and the Neville Sisters still free at large to kick who ever they like, it seems to have done their careers no harm at all.