You know that challenge by Bobby Moore regarded as the best ever? The one where he waits and waits as Jairzinho gallops his way at high speed before putting a precise, clean right boot through the ball during the 1970 World Cup? Well, we saw a tackle as good as that at the Emirates.
Actually, Andy Dawson's challenge on Theo Walcott outstrips Moore's, frankly. Walcott wasn't running at Dawson, he was running ahead of him, bearing down on the penalty box as the Tigers defence tried to backpedal their way into a worthwhile position of protection. Walcott, as we know, is rather sharp off the mark, even with a ball close to his feet. Dawson, fit and healthy but not the nippiest or the youngest, began from a position behind his man when the ball was zipped into the England player's path and had some lung-bursting work to do to regain ground.
The tackle from behind is, of course, illegal. Dawson, from his position, knew that trying to retrieve the ball and prevent Walcott from reaching a shooting position was too risky. Irrespective of a tackle's cleanliness, it is against the rules to do so from behind the player in possession and therefore an automatic foul, thereby almost certainly preventing a scoring opportunity. Dawson, essentially, was risking a red card, while the game was still in its opening spell. His experience shone through.
However, it meant he had to delay his tackle until he had reached Walcott in a side-on position. Dawson was running flat-out whereas Walcott wasn't quite at full tilt because he had the ball under close control. Try sprinting with a football, then sprinting without one. The difference is notable, and Walcott had needed to slow down just enough for Dawson to get to the side of his man as they each reached the edge of the Hull City box.
Now Dawson had to get his timing spot on. He found himself to Walcott's right, therefore making the natural tackling option a sliding motion while swirling his right boot around the ball. But Dawson, as City fans will note with a mixture of horror and humour when recalling his emergency spell at right back last season, can't use his right foot at all. So instead he combined his natural left-footed instinct with an unnatural tackling position and, thankfully, brilliantly, impeccably, they worked. The outside of his left boot stroked the ball from Walcott's control before Dawson's momentum could even touch the player. Walcott went down but every soul in the stadium knew straightaway that the tackle was clean, neat, judged to perfection and straight from the textbook.
Geovanni later took the glory, of course, and rightly so. Daniel Cousin then won us the game, but while the papers slavered over the goals and the shock value of the win, those of us heading back north knew that a masterly defensive display from all was as important, if not most important, in claiming victory. Andy Dawson's tackle on Theo Walcott was my moment of the match, and at least those who follow Hull City will be proud to recall it while the rest of the watching masses, obsessed with where Arsenal went wrong, have already forgotten it happened.
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