Hutton Didn’t Mean It
Aston Villa defender Alan Hutton insists that he never set out to hurt Shane Long after the West Brom striker suffered a horrible injury.
Alan Hutton’s tackle made Shane Long ineligible for the international match in the Euro 2012 play-offs, which was heavily criticised by the Republic of Ireland manager and West Brom manager Roy Hodgson.
However, Alan Hutton has defended the tackle he made on Shane Long saying that he never tackles with the intent of hurting anyone. Tackles have been extremely criticised in the Premier League since the huge number of tackle related injuries started happening in the last few years.
A two-footed lunge now is given a straight red card with no option to appeal against the red card. Such stern actions have meant that the number of injuries resulting from extremely hard tackle has decreased a lot. However, there have been a lot of instances where it is continuing to take place and the latest one is the tackle by Alan Hutton on West Brom striker Shane Long. Aston Villa recently defeated their arch rivals West Brom 2-1 in the Premier League. This match saw the extremely tough challenge put in on Shane Long by Alan Hutton.
“Things happen in football matches, but whatever state of mind I might be in, I would never go out and try to hurt anybody. I hope the video shows that I clearly went to win the ball. The follow-through wasn’t great but I didn’t mean to injure him. It has happened to me before and I just have to get on with it,” said Alan Hutton.
He also said that he does not read too much into the comments made by Roy Hodgson. Many regard it to be a 50-50 challenge that turned out to be bad for Shane Long.
