I don't know whether these have been highlighted anywhere yet but here are a couple of examples of similar cases to the Ramsey-Shawcross incident. (Ed’s note – leg breaking challenges, don’t watch if you are squeamish about seeing this type of thing. Sure doesn’t make for pleasant viewing, but needs to be seen if readers want to understand the comparison)

Belgian league early this season:
Axel Witsel got an 11 match ban for this one (later reduced to 8 matches) on Wasilewski.

French league last season:
Kader Mangane got over two months ban for this one on Lacourt. He did it in March last year and got a two month suspension i.e. basically until the end of the season.

They make our suspensions look pathetic. And yes the managers of the perpetrators did say that they were nice boys, that there were mitigating circumstances/provocations/history, etc. But the bottom line is that they get hammered regardless. Because it's not about malice or intent, it's about recklessness and endangering opponents. It's because in these countries at the end of the day it's about f***ing football and not violence and a moronic macho code of honour.

These are just two examples that I can think of off the top of my head, there are probably others.

I agree with 99% of what's been written on the blogs, and fair play especially to Barclay, Custis and also Matt Dickinson in The Times for a measured piece.

The 1% I disagree with is the idea that this has started since 2004. I wrote a long rant addressed to Graham Bean at The FA in the late 90s after a violent cynical methodical battering that Arsenal’s players (Vieira especially) had taken from Man Utd (Barber or Poll was the ref if I remember rightly) where I explicitly said that an Arsenal player was going to get his leg snapped in half unless they did something about this kind of approach. If I can locate it, I will forward it to you. It proved sadly prescient.