David Luiz was sent off for a disgusting lunging tackle on Arsenal’s Sead Kolasinac on Sunday, and former Chelsea coach Ray Wilkins claim it was due to fear.
The Gunners travelled to Stamford Bridge on Sunday with may pundits ruling out any chance of us coming away with any points whatsoever, but we earned a hard-fought 0-0 draw, and will feel like we could have come come away with more.
The game could well have been changed on its head had David Luiz been sent off for a high boot when attempting an overhead kick, but he was only yellow carded, although he did get a red into the dying minutes of the match.
Luiz attempted to be clever on the ball despite being the last defender, and rounded Alexis Sanchez, only to lose balance with an oncoming Sead Kolasinac, and plough straight through the defender.
The left-back took his time to return to his feet before managing to finish the match, and former Blues coach Wilkins claims that the reaction was most likely made out of fear.
Ray Wilkins said: “It was an atrocious tackle. He either wants to hurt Kolasinac, or he’s afraid. I’ll go for the latter.
“He saw him coming towards him and thought: ‘Wow, this fella is a giant’ and he basically wet himself.
“Kolasinac went to the floor, his boots never came off the ground, he just went for the ball.
“If Luiz had done that there would have been nothing wrong. It’s on the halfway line for goodness sake.”
Can the tank Kolasinac expect this sort of reaction in the future? Was he lucky to come away unscathed or is he just that hard?
Pat J
I’d say he’s right, most players raise their studs in fear that the other fella is gonna do the same. Some players do it to hurt an opponent, he could have pulled out of it but he did not want Kolisinac going down that wing and he was also afraid to make a clean challenge. Also you cannot rule out that he wanted a piece of him from something that went on earlier, I guess we’ll never know, only Luiz can tell. Luiz reaction was flippant, Kolisinac reaction was of a true warrior, Kolasinac is that buddy in the trench while Luiz is that yellow snake.
from his 2nd game (after he appeared bent over sick in china) i warmed to this player and i had sensed something impressive about his approach. he appears solid in stature, can drive the entire team forward with his runs and at an instance he’s a true baller able to mix it and get involve with the more technical side of our game.
is it really by chance that we stumbled across kolasinac? somebody had clearly been doing the homework for us to come up with him. tank was lauded as the latest arsenal super hero iv no issue with it and more importantly he seems to take his newly found acclaim all in his “super-human” stride.
*im pleased as pie with this guy i hope his is a happy and trophy laden career at the arsenal, he’s still a young player and will have to be protected.
Kolasinac is lucky, that kind of tackle can very well be a leg-breaker. No matter how tough you are, you’ll want to avoid those. Kola’s been served notice, this is EPL, and it’s well physical! Stay sharp Kolasinac!
Luiz is a dirty player and I don’t think he much cares about his opponents, he will raise his foot and kick you in the head even though common says he needed to let the ball drop down rather than flying through the air at head height, he would have also been aware that going in over the top of the ball with studs showing was a dangerous tatic and was likely to hurt the opponent.
Luiz is a good player but a dirty bugger who knows what he is doing.
Luckily our big tank came out of it with limbs intact, bet Luiz did let a little bit of we out we he saw Kolasinac come steaming towards him.
For me this guy is our new viera
I was watching Arsenal Fan TV and Robbie made an interesting comment on this topic when a Chelsea fan said that Kolasinac should have been also sent off. He said that for once he (Robbie) was happy that the tables have turned and it wasn’t like the in the past when our players were getting bullied off the ball and kicked up in the air. The Chelsea players players are beginning to look at us no longer as soft touch.